Can't Run Away from the Heart
by Keuraki-SoraXRiku
Summary: Sora thought he was going to live the rest of his life running, but someone with silver hair stopped him in his tracks. Now he can't decide if he should kiss him sensless or keep on running. But running gets tiring.
1. Don't Glare at the Sun

**A/N: Thank you for being so patient with me =D This is the actual, serious first chapter that is replacing the (unedited) first chapter before. If you've already read the first chapter, you don't need to bother yourself with this. If you HAVEN'T, well, enjoy ;P**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Don't Glare at the Sun**

Some people think that new houses smell weird.

Though really, after a while, you get used to the smell of a new house. The tang of a fresh coat of paint, the musky smell of new leather, the slightly sour tinge of opened plastic. It becomes normal – familiar, in a nostalgic kind of way. Becomes the smell of home. If you've moved a couple dozen times, that is.

And with the all bound, never ending moving one would experience whilst trying to run away from something (or someone) when not even knowing if they are being pursued or not, one would think that they, really, did not have a home in the first place. Perhaps a place where they were born, yes, or maybe a place that they liked the most, but not a home.

Sora was pretty surprised when he realized he thought like this, too.

He voiced his surprise to his kid sister, Amanda, as they travelled on yet another journey to yet another house in yet another unfamiliar place one hot spring morning. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised when she told him that she already knew his concern, knew what he felt, and replicated it, too (with a frightening precision). He probably shouldn't have, but he did.

Kid sisters tended to be observant like that, sometimes.

Not that it was a bad thing, but sometimes it was a little annoying when your sister knew when you were lying or when she knew where you had hid your PSP games or when she just _knew_ when you were in a bad mood. Because then she was sad, too, and that didn't help. She even knew all of his secrets. _All_ of them; like a journal with legs and a conscious.

It was even worse when she knew he was gay before he did. She didn't tell him she knew, though. But there were always hints, comments and suggestions and half-truths and he just didn't _realize_ until a while ago. And then, when _he_ told _her _…

He brought up all his courage and dignity and nerves, balled them up and strung them all into one small, simple sentence and it seemed easy enough to say, but when he did it just felt like it went on for _much too long_, but finally it was over, just like that, with a huff of air through his nose and a hand running through his unnaturally spiky brown hair. And there was a pause, before Amanda literally lit up.

_Lit up._

She loved it; praised him and encouraged him and told him that, really, being gay was totally all right and even if the whole world was against him, she would still support him. She was _ecstatic_. Sora didn't know if he should be relieved or disturbed. But Amanda accepted him fully, and that was enough.

It was a little while later when she told him that she had actually known for a while. He didn't know what to say, then, besides everything that described his utter disbelief and total unawareness. He didn't even believe her, at first, but after a while he would find that he remembered so many things she told him that couldn't be coincidences, and a while after that he would find that everything she said would connect, and he'd believe her.

Apparently girls are more accepting than boys. Mother instincts and female hormones, Amanda had one day explained, make girls kinder. After thinking about it for a while, Sora thought it made sense, in a way (because he didn't know a single straight guy who'd react to his outing like Amanda did). He also wondered if these womanly hormones were what made girls do some of the weird, scary things he had seen, like mood swings and protectiveness and too much make-up. Sometimes, rarely, but it had to be noted, Sora didn't even mind the weird or scary things girls would do. Sometimes. Girls could be pretty freaky when they tried.

He also voiced this opinion to his sister.

"Oh, really?" She had said, before taking out her lip gloss and smearing it all over his face.

Correction, girls were the best, and no, they were not freaky, it was the guys who were.

Sora stayed quiet for the rest of the car ride. He didn't particularly like the sticky sensation lip gloss left on your face, even after you had wiped it off with the tissues from the back of the car that were thin and papery after being exposed to the sun for so long, soaked in the water from his bottle and rubbed thoroughly against his skin so that he looked as if he were blushing furiously (to his utter embarrassment). Amanda had said sorry after that, because, really, she did feel bad, but thought that Sora deserved it for calling her species freaky. He was about to comment on how she split females and males into different species, but thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. There where times one could risk their sanity and other times where it was better to keep it under lock and key.

Sora's mother started humming as she drove the car; little tune that neither he nor Amanda recognized. It sounded made up, really, hitching in bad places or repeating itself over and over like one of his broken records. Sora smiled. At least his mother was happy. That was the only reason Sora didn't worry over the fact that he didn't really have a home. A home couldn't be a home if it didn't have a loving parent (and he refused to think 'parents', because you didn't _need_ a mum _and_ a dad, you just needed … _someone_). He kept smiling at the back of his mother's head, brown hair falling gracefully to her shoulders, a grey hair here or there. Even though he knew she wouldn't see his smile, he kept smiling (and he thought that he had seen Amanda smile at him from his peripheral vision, too, but he wasn't sure).

And after that the car ride was peaceful; everything was quiet and calm, the wind making a soft, frequent humming noise as the car sped down the road, lazy leaves swaying in the breeze, and the roads slowly filled with other cars and vehicles as Sora and his family made their way back to civilization, and away from what he liked to think as the hellish-torturous-and-too-damn-long travelling roads. Even Amanda was quiet now, braiding strands of chocolate brown hair and then letting them loose. She looked peaceful, like that. Content.

"Oh, finally, _people_," Amanda smiled as they drove by a small gathering of teens on a sidewalk next to a car filled with food, all laughing and chatting and, overall, sounding like they were having fun (and maybe Sora was jealous of that).

"Yeah, because you haven't seen people in ages." He retorted with an offended (fake) snort.

"Oh. Right," she mumbled, apologetic smile tugging at her lips. "Finally, people who aren't my big brother and my mother. Sorry," Amanda said, grimacing slightly and Sora tried not to laugh at her. "And, uh, no offense," she suddenly added.

"None taken," Sora said, rolling his eyes heavenward and trying not to laugh. Sometimes he loved his sister.

Sora ignored the car after that, taking in the sights of the new place they were just about to enter. They were in Queensland, now. Australia. And it looked so … tropical. A little dry around the edges, but it still had that slight eating-coconuts-and-drinking-fruit-coctails-while-sitting-on-the-waters-edge feeling, with a miraculous amount of palm trees brimming the roads and tour buses headed in the same direction they were, probably to one of the many theme parks the Gold Coast had to offer. Which was where they were headed now. Sora could even see the sign up ahead, green and shinning in the intense light, words printed on it in bold, white cursive lettering, 'Welcome to the Gold Coast'.

_Nearly there_. It was so close Sora could taste the salt in the air on his tongue. It reminded him of somewhere he had once lived, long, long ago, when they didn't have to move continuously and everything was peaceful, lucid and somewhat content. _Normal._

With that thought, Sora's mind started drifting off as he watched the continuous line of palm trees go by. He thought about schools; where he had gone and how long he had stayed and whether he liked any of the people there, whether he would like any of the people in his new school, whether they'd ask about why he never _stayed_ in one school for longer than a year. And he started to remember tidbits of information about people he had once talked to, once been friends with, long ago, who lived in that place he had lived in and who had witnessed his first leave, first departure away from the norm that used to be his life. Smiling faces and slaps on the back and … was that a hug? He wasn't sure. Sora's heart started to ache, his insides clenching and his mouth drying up … and it _hurt_.

He was missing these people, these once-friends he knew but refused to remember but _kept coming up_, again and again and again. Sometimes he'd hear voices of them; voices that were familiar but distant and distorted and they'd speak to him, say_, "Don't ignore me, Sora. Don't ignore _us._ You remember us, right? We're your _friends_."_ Sometimes he could hear them laughing or mocking and it wasn't unfamiliar to hear them hissing in his ears, either. That was what hurt. And sometimes, the times that were fewer, he'd have genuine memories, real words and sentences, like, _"They ran out of sea-salt ice-cream again!"_ or_ "… never knew the water was so blue_".

They hurt the most.

(And Sora never did know whether he liked them any better than the mocking ones).

There was an uncomfortable tightening in his throat, now, and a distinct stinging in his eyes, and he knew he had to shut off the memories, now, like they had switches. Like he always did, always tried to do so that he didn't have to feel what they brought up. Sora clenched his fists, let them be the only sign of his discomfort, and suppressed his feelings before they came apparent on his face, because he knew that missing them, these once-friends, would only cause him pain, since, no, he would not see them again and he had to stop hoping that he could, someday. Told himself to forget about them already, so it'd stop hurting.

And that's exactly what he did. During the whole car ride, Sora never thought of his lost friends again, because it hurt too much, and hadn't he already decided that it was best for him not to start relationships with anyone anymore?

"Hey, you okay, Sora?" Amanda asked after a long period of silence, tilting her head and gripping her thumb in her hand like she always did when she was anxious, cute little habit that Sora knew she didn't know she was doing.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Really?" Her voice was a mix of wanting to believe and disbelief.

Sora couldn't reply. That truth in Amanda's voice, and in her eyes, it was so piercing and pure and so _her,_ so much like his observant little sister … He just couldn't lie to her. It was like trying to breathe while your head was in a plastic bag; you took shallow breaths but still, in the end, you only ended up suffocating. So Sora looked away, and instead tugged at his shirt sleeve, not meeting the gaze he was sure was upon him.

Sometimes he hated how observant Amanda was.

"Sora?" His mother called, glancing through the rear-view mirror to properly look at her son. There was a crease on her forehead and worry in her eyes.

"Yeah, mum, I'm fine." Sora hoped the roughness of his voice wasn't as apparent as he thought.

There was a short, awkward silence in the car, and then his mum said, "Okay … as long as you're all right."

He could tell that neither Amanda nor his mum believed him.

* * * * * * * *

The anticipation of new neighbors can sometimes be really, really annoying. It just stays in your gut and jumps around like bouncy fluff balls in a dryer and doesn't even leave when you're half unconscious in bed and begging, just _begging_ that they'd _go away and leave you alone._

Riku had never had new neighbors before. The ones that had moved, Susan and Nick Chester, they were newlyweds but had been living together since God knows when in the house next door. They had to move because Susan was pregnant. With _twins_. And even though the house was big enough for four they were planning to have more children. They decided to move when it wouldn't be so difficult; last minute decision that shocked everyone on the street, really, because even though they had talked about it no one _expected_ them to move. It just wasn't _believable_, that Susan and Nick Chester would no longer live on Pitt ST. Riku didn't even believe it until the moving vans arrived, and even then he couldn't imagine not seeing them around. They hadn't been that close, but they had become a normality in his life, a frequent occurrence. It was routine for him to say hello to them every morning before school.

Riku shrugged his shoulders and flexed his fingers, somewhat uncomfortable with sitting down for so long on an old wooden piano bench but he would get off soon, anyway, to find that piece of sheet music that had been missing for far-too-long. He bit his lip before diving into yet another song on his piano (and it felt great to say _his_ piano, and not the _family's _piano, like he had had to for the previous two years). This time, he decided, he would play Pachebel's Canon. The soft, melodramatic tune wafted through the air and clung to every bit of furniture and wouldn't let go, floating and dancing and grabbing continuously. It started to confuse Riku's senses, but he was used to it, used to the feeling of not even knowing which way was up or if it was day or dusk or something in between. And this was why Canon was one of Riku's favorite songs. It was so … hypnotic.

But, of course, just as Riku was getting to the climax of the song with tiring-out fingers, his big brother had to walk into the room and ruin the pleasant mood.

_Dammit. _

"Canon? _Again?_ Seriously, Rik, you have to find some other favorite song to play. That's getting old," Mitch teased; his evil big brother smile painted on his face as he took off his shoes and kicked them under the dining room table, demeanor slightly resembling that of the Joker from Batman (or so Riku told him).

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize dorkwards couldn't appreciate good music," Riku retorted, frowning as he lost the rhythm in his song and had to start the climax again.

"How would I know if they could?" Mitch asked, licking his lips and just _begging _Riku to challenge him. He walked over to where Riku sat and irritably started watching him over his shoulder, and Riku could _feel_ him fingering the strands of his hair, resting on his shoulder in one second and being twirled in Mitch's fingers in the next. And if that wasn't distracting enough, Mitch was _humming the Batman theme song,_ of all things, and Riku could feel his presence looming over him like a deafening shadow. And as much as that was ironic, it didn't help how he was trying _not_ to kill Mitch. Trying _not _to imagine him with wide eyes and lying crumpled on the floor as Riku kicked the crap out of him with combat boots and trying _not_ to imagine how he'd beg for Riku's forgiveness (because though those ideas seemed brilliant at the moment he knew he'd feel bad for it later).

Riku, in his sudden flare of temper (and sudden stroke of inspiration), stumbled over a few keys and had to start from the top. Again. This was getting annoying fast.

"Move, Mitch."

"Make me."

"Bastard."

"Gay."

Oh, he asked for it.

Riku jumped up and threw a punch at Mitch (wondered why he was punching and not kicking), hand barely missing the side of his jaw as Mitch dodged the attack (like Riku knew he would, because Riku should be _kicking_). Mitch threw one back, and Riku dodged it, too, but then his arm curved back towards Riku and grabbed his neck. Suddenly, Riku's head was in a headlock and his silver bangs of hair were swinging in front of his face and at the same time he was being propelled downward by the weight of his brother's body and he was noting just how much the impact was going to hurt, bracing himself for the fall as much as he could and squeezing his eyes shut, when there came a clear, loud, powerful voice from the kitchen down the hall.

"I hope you're not fighting, boys, or its garage duty for the both of you," his mother's voice stated, distant but uncharacteristically loud. And as quickly as that, Riku was pulled upright by Mitch without a single comment, and they both straightened themselves and fixed their shirts and brushed off their clothes and stood, awkward and huffing. Riku ran his fingers through his long, white-silver hair, aiming a glare at the floor, knowing it would have hurt him. Badly. Floors had no mercy whatsoever when you fell on them. Or when you where being propelled down at them by your brother, but both situations had the same result.

After an awkward moment of not knowing what to do, Mitch cleared his throat and scratched his head, holding out his other hand.

"Truce?" He asked, sheepish grin not so evil looking.

Riku aimed the glare at Mitch, now, studying him from the short white-silver hair on his head to his toes and back again, then let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes in mock defeat.

"Truce," Riku stated, grabbing his hand and shaking.

He thought he could hear his mother's voice chuckle slightly, but he wasn't sure. He could just imagine her white blonde hair tied up in a bun, falling out slightly, and the corners of her mouth perked up, making her aquamarine eyes squint. Of course, she'd definitely deny ever laughing at her sons. Deny it and then accuse him of thinking horrid things about his mother.

Riku got a lot of his features from his mum, actually (as much as that was uncommon for a guy), including his eyes. And his hair, though it was more white than it was her blonde. And their smile was pretty similar, too, and he often heard comments about this exact fact from his father, who would look at him strangely when his smile was spread over his face; a little creepy, but he knew his father meant well. It went the same way for his brother, too, with his short white-silver hair and green eyes, but not so much the smile; Mitch's smile was, without a doubt, pure wickedness. Riku had wondered more than once if it came with the big brother territory.

Mitch finally left the room, leaving Riku to play his piano in peace. Canon's melodramatic melody yet again started off from it's hypnotizing climax, and Riku fell into step with the song, not thinking, but letting his fingers do the work and his mind, as if it were disconnected from his body, listening. He could hear his mother softly humming the tune in the kitchen.

It was when Riku played the last keys of his song that he heard the loud roar of a trucks engine, then another, both combining outside his house to make an unbearable racket.

"What _now_?" He grumbled, wondered what all the fuss was, ran his fingers through his hair and left the confines of the dinning room to investigate what exactly was disturbing his piano playing.

When Riku went to the front door, the rest of his family was already there, talking in raised voices because the noise was ridiculously loud. He jogged over to his father, who was staring thoughtfully at one of the big, white moving trucks that was parked next door, and tapped him on the shoulder. His father's blue eyes turned to him, then, and he smiled.

"Looks like the new neighbors will be here, soon."

And then, stupidly, Riku realized what the heck the big moving vans were here for. _The new neighbors,_ like that wasn't the _most obvious thing in the world_. On cue, the big fluff balls took their place in the pit of his stomach (mistaking it for a dryer), jumping around and having a great time while making him feel like he had to scream. Or laugh, he wasn't sure.

"Okay, inside, everyone. They aren't here yet." His father announced, stepping away from the sidewalk they had all crowded on.

Everyone walked back inside the house, Mitch giving Riku a slight shove while passing (Riku could have sworn that Mitch looked disappointed. And _that_ was probably because he was hoping to meet the next item of his mockery), his mother still in her apron and her hands covered in flour and held out precariously in front of her, but Riku stayed perfectly still, curiosity on overdrive. He wanted to know who was coming, who was going to live in the not-house of Susan and Nick Chester, and who else would know besides the people lugging their stuff?

So, agreeing with himself wholeheartedly, Riku walked up to the first truck and stood at the door, waiting for the driver to notice him because, really, it was a waste of time to try and get the drivers attention by shouting. He wouldn't hear over the noise. Heck, why were they keeping the engines on in the first place?

It took a while for the driver to notice him, cap incidentally blocking his view as it tilted over his left eye. He jumped as he saw Riku, quickly righted himself, and then looked at him with a confused expression before frowning and opening the door.

"Yeah?" He asked with a shout, voice gruff and completed with a thick accent. The deep outback, maybe? "Watcha want, mate?"

That took Riku off guard. What did he want, exactly? Names? Life descriptions? He didn't really think this through. "Um," Riku paused, thought for a second, then decided that he shouldn't ask for anything more than a name, really, because anything else would be prying into privacy. "Would you be able to tell me who's coming? And when, possibly?" He added as an afterthought.

The driver paused, tapping his chin with one slightly stubby finger. "I might," he said, looking over at Riku. "Depends who's asking."

"Riku," he stated, then amended, "Uh, the next door neighbor."

The driver nodded with approval. "Yeah, jus' wait a sec, kiddo. I got the info here some place."

The driver then turned around and leaned over to the opposite seat, revealing a pair of Bonds boxers (Riku cringed) while reaching for a black sports bag and pulling out a wooden clipboard covered in dog eared slips of A4 paper.

"Says here that there's a Ms Linda Knight, Amanda Knight, and Sora Knight. An' by my knowledge they should be here in round about an hour. That good enough?"

"Yeah," Riku smiled, "Thanks."

The driver gave him one curt nod before shutting the door.

Linda, Amanda and Sora, huh? Sora like the sky, Sora? Riku chuckled. Sora, like the sky, and Riku, like the earth, living next to each other. That was too much of a coincidence.

He didn't tell his family the names when they asked.

* * * * * * * *

Sora decided that he liked the Gold Coast.

Firstly, he would be living quite close to the beach, incorporated with white sandy banks that stretched on for miles, pure tropical blue water, and overpriced restaurants which all brimmed the edges of the sand and sold cheap, badly cooked food and charged mainly for the water view. He hoped to check at least one out before he moved again, just to see how bad it was.

Secondly, the suburb that he and his family now lived in included both a JB HI-FI and an EB Games. He rarely saw the two stores together when he wasn't in some kind of mall. Now he was free to shop there until he ran out of money. Ah, the life.

And the third reason for why he liked the Gold Coast so much made its appearance when his mother turned the curb into their new street, crawling to the moving trucks so slowly Sora thought he might just open the door and jump outside and run there himself, because these crawling half-steps were _not_ the right way to drive when you were excited.

"Here we are kiddos. Our new home," his mother smiled, coming to a halt in front of their new house. Sora refused to call it home, because it wasn't. It was just the place he'd be staying at for another year; he'd have no connection to it next January, and he'd have no connection to it now, besides the fact that all his stuff was there and it was where he had to sleep. He did, however, remember how it looked, because he had to _remember_ where his stuff was and where he had to go to sleep.

It was a two storey, red bricked house, with steps leading to a white and gold doorway with a matching balcony. The front garden was prim and proper, thick green grass surrounding a pebbled pathway that forked to lead both to the front door and the white wooden gate that blocked entrance to the backyard. And standing in that exact front yard was a family, all smiles and waves and bearing gifts. Were they welcoming them? Well, this was a first, even for Sora. And … was it just him, or was their hair unnaturally _white_?

His mother cocked her head as she turned off the engine and murmured to herself, "We've never had a family greet us like this before. How nice of them," and with that she checked her face in the rearview mirror, grabbed her handbag and opened the door.

"Come on. Don't be shy, now." She laughed as she closed her door and went to open Amanda's. When Sora looked at Amanda , feet out the door and back to Sora, she lolled her head back and smiled awkwardly, pearly white teeth and all, and said, "I like this place already." At least she felt okay about this; about everything. Sora returned the smile, and hoped with as much hope he was able to muster without hurting himself that this place would treat them well. Or well enough, because running away from death was so much easier when you could rest in a place that didn't let its curiosity overtake itself.

Sora didn't look at the family, much, as he slid down and followed Amanda out the opposite door, nor did he take notice of them when he stumbled out in a less-than-graceful manner. Humiliation tended to throw itself at teenagers like that. He did look at the grass, though, as if it was the most interesting, mind boggling thing he'd ever seen and he just had to spend hours gazing at it because there was just so much to consider (and not because he didn't want to pointedly look at the family in front of him).

"Sora," he heard Amanda whisper, "Come on." Reluctantly Sora shoved his hands into his navy blue denim shorts and trudged along, not wanting to actually meet the family that was waiting for him with their smiles and their sickly-sweet happiness, because they didn't know what it was_ like_ to run away all their life from a person they trusted, they fucking _trusted_ with everything they had and then had that taken away from them in a gunshot and a threat to follow them for life. Did they know that? No, no they _didn't_.

Sora cursed himself and said, mumbling so that he could barely hear himself, "Of course they don't know, because they're a _normal family_." So stop judging them. They're probably nice.

So Sora kept his thoughts quiet, and he behaved himself and walked up to the family, standing next to Amanda, who was acting (he noted with uncertainty) a little weirdly; fidgeting, twirling her hair, shifting from foot to foot like she was uncomfortable, once or twice holding her thumb in her hand. Sora knew she was nervous. Her nerves perked up his interest, though, and he wondered about who was standing in front of him.

That's when he heard the voice of a woman.

"Welcome! You must be the Knight family," the voice said, motherly tone all too apparent. Her voice sounded like it was covered in honey.

"This is very nice of you, welcoming us like this," Sora's mother replied, her voice all smiles.

"Well, we had to introduce ourselves, right?" The mother said, laughing politely.

(And although Sora wanted to retort, _"No you didn't,"_ he couldn't help but feel both flattered and relieved that they had).

"Speaking of rude, we haven't introduced ourselves yet, either." His mother said. Sora swore a line of profanities in his head. Now he had to look up.

"My name's Linda," his mum smiled, and Sora could hear her shaking hands with the other mum. "And this is my daughter Amanda."

"Hey," Amanda greeted the family, a sound a lot like laughter in her voice. Sora swallowed.

"And this boy here is my son, Sora."

And, balling his hands into fists under the fabric of his denim pockets and heaving a great sigh, Sora looked up and was greeted by a whole family with varying shades of white hair, all smiles and politeness, and Sora nearly _gasped_ because his eyes had just caught the gaze of another pair of eyes of the most amazing aquamarine color he had ever seen. And the boy he was staring at was just as beautiful.

Sora's senses were muffled, then, and he didn't know what time of day it was or whether he was sitting or standing but he _did_ know that what he was looking at was some kind of cruelty the world had thrown upon him because no, running away all his life just _wasn't enough_, they had to make him live next to the most astonishing guy he'd ever seen, just for kicks, because they knew Sora would _love_ that.

"Sora," he thought he heard someone call, but he ignored it. The boy standing in front of him smiled, then, _smiled at him_, and his smile was small, a little rough around the edges but Sora thought it was perfect. He could feel the blush rise on his cheeks, fast and painful to his dignity (and he remembered how he looked after wiping off the lip gloss, and he hoped that that was gone).

"_Sora_," someone called again, causing the boy in front of him to look away, aquamarine eyes covered with long, silver eyelashes.

Sora felt something poke his side.

"Hey, ouch!" He started, then cut himself off and blinked, suddenly aware of what he was doing and where he was and how everyone was looking at him weirdly. _Everyone_, including the people he didn't know and his mother, too, looking at him with a slightly exasperated, slightly confused smile (of all things). The blush he knew was on his cheeks decided to turn itself to a darker shade.

"You're supposed to say something, now," Amanda whispered, nudging him with her elbow again. The smile on her face was comforting, and Sora had a sudden thought that Amanda knew what had just gone through his head, because her smile had turned into something of complete and utter glee.

Sora's blush did not deepen, and for that he was grateful when he opened his mouth and stuttered a little "Hi," before again studying the grass at his shoes with too much interest.

There was a little pause where Sora was sure he heard someone chuckle before the motherly voice that belonged to the mum said, "Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Sophia Woods –"

"And I'm her husband, Richard Woods," a male voice interrupted, strong and kind at the same time. Sora found himself looking up again, because he knew that sooner or later the boy in front of him was going to speak, and Sora didn't want to miss that.

"I'm Mitch," someone said, then, and Sora looked over to a boy that looked rather like the boy who stood in front of him, but his white-silver hair was short and his eyes were a deep forest green, not aquamarine like the one's that Sora had encountered, and this boy, Mitch's smile, it had a slight edge of wickedness in it. Sora realized Mitch would be the boy's big brother.

And then all attention was on the boy in front of Sora, and Sora gulped before turning his attention to him, too. His stomach twisted into knots and his legs felt like jelly when he met the aquamarine eyes for the second time.

"I'm Riku," the boy said, eyes on Sora, something a little like anger but not so on his face. "It's nice to meet you."

Sora's heart gave a jolt.

"Well, I don't mean to be rude, but my children and I need to get unpacking and get an early nights rest." Sora's mum politely ended, glancing inconspicuously though noticeably at her son. And Sora had to cringe at that, because he bet that she knew what he was thinking, too.

"Oh, of course, of course," Riku's mum chimed, clapping her hands together. "We wouldn't want to keep you waiting. Well, if you need anything, don't be afraid to ask."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Riku's mum nodded and turned to walk away, before stopping in front of Riku and whispering something to him, and Riku's face slowly changed from awkward and polite to astounded and annoyed. Riku glared at his mum, and there was a slight pause in the conversation as she chuckled before she continued talking in a mumbled, rushed tone.

Sora thought he heard a "– cute little boy over there –" being whispered, but he wasn't sure, and frankly, if it was true, he didn't know what to do about it. It would obviously be about him, and how was he supposed to react when someone he didn't even know was commenting on how _cute_ he was? Because he was not _cute_. He was _not_. Sora pulled his face into a neutral mask so that no one would find out he had heard; figured that would be most appropriate, and that way he could try to forget it was ever said.

Riku's father stepped in, then. His voice was clear compared to the hushed whispers.

"We need to go, now."

Riku's mum stopped, looked at her husband, then sighed and walked off with her son, Mitch, as if nothing had happened and no, she wasn't talking about Sora, and no, she did not say he was _cute_.

Riku, however, stopped in his tracks and turned around, looking over to Sora with a half-smile, and he _waved_, yet another neutral expression on his face, followed by a pause on his behalf and walking off to his own house.

Sora just stared. He didn't care about the look on his face or if the Woods family thought he was weird and he didn't care about why he and his family where here in the first place or about what had happened in the past. He didn't care about a lot of things, then, because the world had suddenly pointed itself solely upon one thing that he felt he had to worry about, one thing to focus his attention to.

Riku.

And that, right there and then, was Sora's third and final reason to like the Gold Coast so much.

* * *

Oh god, it's terrible _ Put up with me until this gets a little more clean-cut and defined, okay? Thanks for reading =D


	2. Remembering Before

A/N: Well, here's the new second chapter. Not all that different from the unedited one, but it's worth replacing. It's short, but believe me, the chapters will be getting longer as this story decides to go somewhere, okay?? Have fun ;D

* * *

**Chapter 2: Remembering Before**

You dream when you're tired; intent on the flight of imagination filled with ambiguity and twists so enthralling, so stimulating, twilight and the half-light non existent, reality unreal (unreal being the reality?). Adventures, pure adrenaline-fueled adventures where you could fly and be the hero with the mythical Keyblade, or where you could be trapped in the winding corridors of mysterious, forbidding, long forgotten places, running in the sloth-like slow motion of a dreamer being pursued. It was supposed to be easy, _so freaking easy_ to go to that dream world when you were tired, so why wasn't Sora dreaming? Or sleeping, for that matter?

Oh, he knew perfectly well why he wasn't sleeping. He just didn't get _why_. Thoughts could get a little muddled when you were so tired your body was aching, sure, but it didn't explain what he was thinking, why he was thinking it, not even why, of all times, he had to be thinking it _now_. Now, when all he wanted to do was forget about the stupid day and rest for a while.

But of course, the little part of his brain that Sora liked to call his conscious gave him answers that didn't make sense, and the even smaller part of his brain that Sora didn't know what to call gave him answers that froze him to the core, because these answers were different, out of his element; or maybe, more correctly, in the element that he didn't want to touch, not then, when his mind did the best thinking and had the worst timing. Like coming up with ridiculous thoughts about why he liked Riku (not that he did).

Riku was on his mind. Everywhere he looked, something lead to something else that lead to Riku. His mouth was so dry that Sora couldn't swallow, nerves taking their toll on his body, slowly incapacitating everything they could get their hands on. Fingers of insecurity and wonder and something that made him feel like throwing up were twining around his chest, and maybe it was just his imagination but it was really making it hard to breathe.

Sora wasn't used to thinking about guys, wasn't used to the feelings that swelled in his chest; scary little feelings that made him run away from his heart. So when he thought about Riku's eyes or the color of his hair or even the sound of his voice, and when his heart pounded in his chest, Sora didn't know if it was _normal_.

_Does it really matter if it's normal or not?_ A voice questioned him, and he was relieved to find that it was not, in fact, one of the voices of his non-friends.

_Mm, dunno. Maybe._

But thinking like this wasn't _rational_. Sora had just met Riku … four hours ago. He didn't know what type of person he was or if he was nice or what he liked. So it was only obvious that Sora could not like Riku; not his hair, not his eyes, not his voice; nothing.

It was _impossible._

Tired and unable to think properly, Sora blocked out his thoughts and turned onto his back, watching as a car headlight streamed across his ceiling before trailing the opposite wall and disappearing. His thoughts were always go jumbled and inconsistent when he was tired, like he was seeing them through blurred glass. Maybe if he could just get to sleep, have some rest, maybe these 'feelings' (or whatever they were) would go away.

Maybe.

And maybe if Sora were to see Riku again, the answers he looked for would greet him along with the item of his thoughts (he found himself thinking, even though he was quite insistent on dropping the subject and going to sleep). But as soon as Sora thought this, images of long, silver hair popped up into his head, running fingers through that hair because it looked so touchable and imagining how it would smell if he put his nose up close, and he felt his heart quicken its pace and the fingers of insecurity and wonder squeeze at his stomach.

Sora mumbled, punched his pillow until it looked reasonably cushiony and rolled onto his side. He completely gave up on blocking out his thoughts; he was just too tired to continue fighting when it was one thirty in the morning and, no, he hadn't gotten any sleep, and spent the early hours dreaming about trailing silver hair and hypnotizing aquamarine eyes.

* * * * * * * * *

Breakfast tended to vary for Sora's family. Sometimes it consisted of a McDonald's hash brown and a milkshake, other times it would be something along the lines of home cooked bacon and eggs accompanied with toast dripping with margarine, and then there was the plain, rightly underrated cereal everyone knew and loved to hate.

To the relief of his growling stomach and throbbing head (symptoms of lack of sleep) he had smelt bacon and eggs when he woke up (which resulted in him rushing to the table and eyeing the food in front of him). Sora lapped at his food with a great amount of enthusiasm, savoring the rich taste of the bacon and guffawing down the eggs while they were still dangerously hot because he just didn't have enough restraint to wait for them to cool. He saved the toast for last, pools of margarine glistening in the florescent light of the kitchen and he nearly choked on the drying toast when he decided to swallow it down just as he had with is eggs.

"Mum, he's doing it again," Amanda sniggered from across the breakfast table, all too lively for so early in the morning. Her face was cute; cheeks stuffed with eggs, bulging, so she wasn't able to smile or even speak properly. Hypocrite.

"Stop him before he chokes," Sora's mum shouted a reply from inside the fridge (searching for more orange juice because Sora had drank it all). "I don't want my son choking on perfectly good food. Do you hear that, Sora?" She laughed. "At least chew your food before you swallow."

Sora made a half grunt, half choking sound that Amanda and his mum new all too well to be a Sora reply. He was too busy eating to make any kind of retaliation.

When Amanda finished eating she offered to do the dishes. There weren't many to do, but the dishwasher hadn't come in yet and their mum had left to post the mail before the Post Office had a chance to (fully) open. The dishwashing liquid was still in one of the boxes, not to the surprise of Sora but much to Amanda's dislike, so she was rummaging through one of the boxes, now, arms deep into its confines and hair falling down on either side of her face (she kept blowing it away but it didn't help).

"Why does the dishwashing liquid always end up on the bottom?" Amanda sighed, pulling out the yellow and white bottle and stiffly standing up. Sora decided that it was a rhetorical question and didn't need his answering.

Then she was walking to the sink, bottle dangling at her side, but she halted half way, turned to Sora but didn't look at him and said, much to his surprise, "Um, you wanna help me with these?"

Sora's eyebrows shot up. There was a pause, and Amanda was biting her lip and Sora was blinking and the whole situation was very uncomfortable. "Sure?"

She nodded slightly, then turned and continued to the sink. Sora noticed the hand that was holding her thumb. The sinking feeling in his stomach had nothing to do with the digestion of his breakfast. He stood (the squeal of the chair against the hardwood floor made him cringe) and followed Amanda to the sink and started the water.

A long period of silence followed, only broken by the patter of water against dishes, the swish of soap and sponge and the wipe of dish towel against the wet surface of cutlery and dinner plates. The air was heavy around them, and as Sora finished drying the last fork off he found his movements feeling as forced as the silence was.

By the time the dishes were put away Amanda hadn't said anything. Sora knew with certainty, knew it in the pit of his stomach that she needed to talk about something, let it off of her chest before it made her crack into tiny little pieces of Amanda. Knew it, but he didn't say anything, instead waited till Amanda was as comfortable as she could make herself. Amanda was pulling at the hem of her dress and the hand holding her thumb was too preoccupied to continue the involuntary habit.

Sora was starting to feel uneasy. The look that was on Amanda's face would have done that to anyone; trembling lips and expression slowly turning to a depressing omnipresent feature, countenance gradually turning whiter until it was like she had died right in front of him and what he was seeing was her ghost, smile forced, desolate eyes without the honey sweetness. Sora had the sneaking suspicion that she was going to suddenly walk through a wall and disappear.

Amanda sighed, then, and grabbed the sponge and started to clean the sink. She coughed a little, and even though her face was turned away Sora could see that she had turned so much whiter, _porcelain pale_, and that wasn't good at all. Sora only remembered one other time Amanda had looked like that, and it was when she was in a hospital bed in California after the "accident" (the police had called it that, but that was only for cover; everyone who needed to know knew how she got hurt, and that it was no accident). Sora started to really, seriously panic. Whatever the hell Amanda was thinking was not doing her any good at all.

"Hey, if you have something to say, say it," Sora encouraged, silent beg of a big brother. He couldn't just wait like this any longer. He just _couldn't_.

And then Amanda deflated, literally, her shoulders slumping and her head dropping to face the ground and she dropped the sponge so that it made a silent splash against the tiles. Sora jumped.

"H-hey!" He exclaimed, running to Amanda because she looked as if she were about to collapse; her knees shook and she clutched the counter like it depended on her life, and then her chest heaved, freaking _heaved_, like she wasn't able to get enough air.

Sora wrapped his arm around her waist and pried Amanda's shaking fingers away from the counter. Her frame was shaking from head to toe, now; so dangerously fragile, and Sora lead her over to the kitchen chair, cooing "Hey, you're okay. Let's just sit you down," all the while thinking that crap his sister was in it bad, and crap he didn't know what the hell to do about it, and _crap_ he was such a careless big brother for letting her get like this.

Sora realized what was wrong with Amanda when he heard a shaky sob rise from her trembling lips. She was crying. _Amanda was crying_, and he had no idea why but right now he wasn't sure if he cared or not, only sure that watching his little sister cry was worse than anything else in the whole freaking world and he felt like _crap_ when another cracking sob made its way through Amanda's lips.

She sat down, rocking back and forth and clutching her stomach, and Sora did what he thought was necessary. He lied. Told her, "It's okay, Amanda. It's all right. There's no need to cry," cooing and reassuring and cradling her on his chest, rocking back and forth, protecting her from the horrid things she was thinking with his dream-Keyblade and his words.

Amanda looked up at him so suddenly, then, albeit reluctantly, and her clouded honey brown eyes met his. They windowed something like fear and something larger than worry. Sora gulped.

"What's wrong?" He asked, and even to him it sounded more like a command coated in a shaking voice than the genuine concern he felt.

At first there was no response from Amanda, only the heaving breaths she took, the repressed sobbing, the loud silence between them when she turned her gaze onto the tiled floor and broke, slowly and painfully and quietly, there being rocked in his arms. But then she sighed, calmed down a bit so that she could speak coherently, breathed a little slower.

"Sora …"

"Yeah?" Sora encouraged, rubbing Amanda's back with his thumb in tiny, continuous circles.

"I'm sorry," she hiccupped, biting her lip.

"Hey, there's nothing to be sorry about."

She paused, just for a second, shaking her head vigorously like she was trying to deny what he said, and Sora strongly thought that she was, and then, "I … Sora, really, I can't keep doing this," she whimpered, sniffling, holding back choking sobs by gritting her teeth. "_We_ can't keep doing this."

Sora winced.

_Oh, no._

He knew what was wrong, had actually known all along but it never occurred to him to be the problem right now. He hated it, loathed it, despised it and wanted to punch it and make it pay, but he knew he couldn't do anything about it and all that was going through his head was shit, they were going to face it now and he wasn't ready.

"Sora …" Amanda whispered, clutching his hand in her own and shaking with a scary consistency. "Sora, I dreamt about them again last night." She looked up at Sora, honey eyes pleading.

"Yeah … I know." And he really did, because sometime in the early hours of the morning while he dreamt about silver hair he heard her crying again.

"I miss them."

Sora shifted his knees against the tiles and knew that he was squirming.

"I miss them too."

And to Sora's surprise Amanda smiled; little, weak, slightly shaky, but it was genuine, and she grasped his hand tighter and sat up, nodding her head and looking down again.

"I want friends again," she whispered, licking her lips.

Sora froze, blinking at her, running thoughts through his head that didn't even make sense because he was so confused and this conversation was just going so fast that he couldn't keep up with the fact that Amanda _wanted the pain_. _No_ went through his head, pounding with his pulse, over and over again. _No, this wasn't happening. Nonononono. _

Kneeled beside her, he sat still, no longer comforting her, but feeling as if _he_ was the one who was going to need to be comforted. All these thoughts, they were … painful, so _freaking_ painful, and he knew he wanted to stay away from them, push them under his mental couch and let them gather dust and rot there as punishment for all the pain they caused him, but it wasn't working. They crawled out from the dust with the help of Amanda's words and they were haunting him again, not that they stopped, really. But now it was worse. Like before. He could hear their voices, menacing, challenging, _"Look at us, Sora. Come on. You can't ignore us."_

"Don't, Amanda," was all he could manage from his tightening throat. He didn't want to. _He didn't want to do this_. Amanda had to understand that. "Just don't."

She looked as if Sora had slapped her. Sora cringed, but that was all he offered as an apology.

"Don't what, Sora?" She asked him, tears clinging to her lashes, and guilt wrapped Sora up in its lethal arms when he realized that he was making Amanda cry. "Don't cry? Don't love? Don't freaking feel anything because it hurts too much? I can't do that," she gritted her teeth, turning to Sora and fisting her shaking fingers into balls at her sides. "I've tried Sora, and you have too. But it doesn't work like that."

"Then how does it work? Does it work every time we move to a different time zone and leave behind our friends or when there's no one to leave behind?"

Amanda grimaced. "It's better than being alone."

"We don't know that." Sora whispered.

Amanda's gaze fell to the floor. No one moved. No one spoke. The only thing Sora could hear was his own labored breathing and the sniffles of his little sister, clutching her chest.

He could feel the old wounds, imagined gaping crevices in his chest, imagined Amanda picking at the scabs with long, desperate fingernails and now they bled again, fresh, raw, stinging. Sora knew he shouldn't be angry, knew that, yes, this day was going to come, but he wasn't thinking rationally and every part of his brain was screaming agonizing pain and that just felt like _shit_.

Through it, though, through the pain and the anger and through the walls he'd built Sora knew that they couldn't just block themselves out from the rest of the world forever. And he didn't want to keep up the walls, not really. He wanted to believe that love and friendship was worth the pain.

"I'm sorry," Amanda broke the silence with the tortured whisper before doubling over and shaking.

Sora realized why she had apologized before, when they had started the conversation and he still didn't know what the hell was going on. Amanda knew how much they were both going to hurt. And Sora felt bad, then, felt terrible, because she sincerely just wanted her life back, wanted it so bad, and Sora knew exactly how she felt and right now he was acting like a hypocrite. And truthfully, Sora knew that deep in his heart he wanted the exact same thing Amanda was begging for. He didn't want to be alone.

"I'm sorry too." He whispered, hand still massaging soothing circles on her back.

"Really?' Amanda asked, body still scrunched up and huddled together but she had stopped shaking now, at least.

"Yeah," Sora said. "It's not like I don't want friends as well or anything. But you _know_ that it … that we …" Sora sighed and tried to gather his words so that he wouldn't hurt Amanda by saying something he didn't want to say. It gave her enough time to stop crying and just huddle there, under his hand. "Look, friends just don't work out in our situation, okay? When we leave, we have to leave them, too. That's just too much to handle, Amanda. You _know_ that."

"Then let's not leave."

"…What?" Sora asked, bewildered, because a suggestion like that was going to get them _killed_. It was going to _get them killed_ and there was no exaggeration in his words, none at all, but when he looked at Amanda she had turned her head to look at him and there was a certainty in her eyes, a promise that it would be okay, like she knew nothing was going to happen.

Amanda took advantage of Sora's obvious shock and rambled on. "We don't even know if he's still following us, Sora. We've been running away for so long that we've forgotten the reason _why_. So why don't we just stop for a while? Why don't we rest, catch our breath for a couple of years, no, better, for a couple of decades, you know, see where it takes us? And if he comes back we can leave." She paused, took a breath, stalled for a second to gauge Sora's reaction, saw shock and indecision, and she continued. "I don't want to sacrifice friendship for nothing. I want to be certain that there's a reason, and right now … we're not certain. Not even mum."

If anything, Sora had to agree with that mum part.

Mulling over things, Sora admitted, was a specialty of his. He didn't need quiet to think, didn't need air or time or structure. He would hypothesize and analyze and consider and weight his options and look a both arguments and he'd make up his mind, tie his opinion in a knot and hand it over.

"Wait a sec, okay?" He asked Amanda, only a whisper, because he needed to think, now. Amanda nodded, and she definitely wasn't crying anymore, and Sora took that as a sign of her calming down.

So Sora mulled over what Amanda had presented to him, feeling the searing pain that continuously burned his chest, examining it, comparing it to the happy and sad memories he remembered from the little amount of time he was able to have friends. Was it worth it? Was friendship worth hurting for?

He remembered the time a certain brown haired girl in pigtails had shown him a small pond off the coast of an Island he had once lived on, long ago. The name Destiny Islands seemed to pop in his head. It sounded right.

Sora was the only person she had shown it to; it was a secret pond, magical, surrounded by small palm trees and wildflowers and a fallen palm tree that made a great place to sit and talk. He remembered without blocking the memories and he felt; felt the way he was liked, the way he was trusted, the way he felt as if he was special to someone who didn't have to like or trust him. Didn't have to, but did. The kind of acceptance you could only gain from a stranger.

The girl smiled at him, bubbling and full of radiance and she said, "You can't tell anyone, okay? It's our secret." His heart swelled with happiness and love and something that made him feel different, like he had a big responsibility.

Then his memories turned to the day he had to leave Destiny Islands. The brown haired girl was crying, tear streaked cheeks shinning in the intense sunlight. She was clutching the hem of her mum's dress, not tall enough to reach any higher but tall enough to lay her head against her mum's thigh.

"Don't go, Sora. Don't go, Amanda," she had said, and Sora remembered it clearly, remembered the tone and the way her voice caught at the end of his name and the way you could know she was crying without even looking at her. He remembered the voice of his mother, replying something along the lines of, "They have to, honey. We have to," and Sora didn't understand why they had to leave, and he was angry, so angry, his little fists shaking at his sides and his innocent little mind not registering how important it was to leave everyone behind, because it was a grown up problem he wasn't allowed to know about.

Before he knew it Sora was back in the present time, staring at the yellow kitchen wall as if it held all the answers. He blinked, slightly befuddled, cracked his neck because it was really stiff and that was painful for him, and looked over at Amanda, who was staring at Sora; waiting, watching.

"How long was I out?" Sora asked, swallowing, knew he failed at lightening the mood with wit but was relieved that he had tried, anyway.

Amanda looked at the clock. "About five minutes," hushed whisper, little lick of the lips.

"Huh," Sora mumbled, returning his gaze to the plain yellow wall in front of him and finishing off his analysis of something he thought he would never more than glance at.

Friendship had its ups and downs, but when you weighed them against each other the ups ruled over the downs and smothered them, happiness over sadness, fun over annoyance, acceptance over jealousy, smothered them as if they didn't exist. And then when you weighed the ups and downs of a friendship with the pain of losing it, it was … worth it. The experience of a love that isn't forced upon someone, where the choice is made to love or hate a complete stranger and change the life of someone so drastically; that choice, that innocent choice, was a choice that Sora wanted to make again. Even if it was just one time. Even if it hurt.

In theory, he could do it. In his head he thought up different ways to dodge the pain, smother it, run away from it, but in the big wide world it didn't work like that and he knew, _god_ he knew how much it hurt and that, no, it wasn't as easy as it was in his head.

But he was going to try.

" … Okay," he whispered, feeling Amanda jump next to him.

"Okay what?" She asked, and Sora had to remind himself that no matter how observant she was, Amanda wasn't able to read his mind

"Okay, let's stay. Let's convince Mum to live here in the Gold Coast for a few years, maybe even more, and we can go –"

"You serious, Sora?" She stared at him as if he had just sprouted horns and was galloping away with Santa Claus.

"Why? You think I'm joking?" He asked, raising an eyebrow before lightly laughing, and Amanda just shook her head, bright smile on her face, happiness there and honey eyes back and a gleam of white teeth across a stretch of glossy pink lips. The glisten of tear tracks down her cheeks was wiped away with the back of her hand.

"What changed your mind?" She asked, bemused little tone in her voice coated in glee and relief.

"I don't know. I guess I never really thought about it before, is all." He shrugged, and it was the truth, at least. He never thought about it before because he didn't think he had it in him.

Amanda sighed, then, slumped in the chair and put her head in her hands and _laughed_, chesty and wholeheartedly and it was both exhilarating and scary at the same time.

"Eight years," she gasped, head still in her hands and she was rocking back and forth, now, laughing and gasping, "Eight years of running away and we're finally going to do something about it!"

"Yeah," Sora laughed, scratching his head. He could feel the atmosphere around them lighten up instantly, yellow walls sunny and bright instead of bleak and pale, smiling faces instead of shaking sobs.

"Yeah," Amanda gasped, finally coming to her senses, a certain calm on her face as she sat up, out of the chair with a squeak, and a quick pace around the room before her eyes settled on Sora again, a sparkle in her eye; ideas forming, doubtlessly.

"Why don't we start now?' She asked, clapping her hands together. "Yeah, Sora! You know the people next door? We could get to know them," she smiled, walking over to Sora and tilting her head, inquisitive little noise in the back of her throat. "And you could get to know that Riku better, too."

Sora's heart missed a beat before pumping in his chest tenfold. Sora could have sworn he was going crazy, or worse, but he didn't want to think about that because his nerves had had enough for one day, and it was only morning but he felt that he really needed a long, long nap.

Sora knew it, knew that he really, really wanted it; wanted to find out more about Riku and explore the kind of person he was (and a sudden thought occurred to Sora that he wanted to explore more of Riku than his personality, something physical, maybe, and that made his insides flip), but the walls he had built weren't fully knocked down yet and he knew that it was going to take some serious hammering to get them to disappear.

Sora was a muddle of uncertainty, so he didn't think he could speak coherently, but thankfully he was able to manage a, "Um, I don't think I can do that just yet," to Amanda before completely breaking down to a pile of pitiful teenage hormones while trying to hide spoken breakdown from his sister.

"Oh really?" Amanda had said, voice teasing and full of a promise of further talk about 'getting to know Riku', whatever that really meant.

"I hope you're not planning anything," he replied, bright smile on his face that hid the party of hormones and stimulated nerves in his body.

"Hey, big brother, I don't do the planning. You do."

* * * * * * * * *

Riku groaned. Of all the embarrassing things his mum could have thought up, it had to be this. The unintentional misery she was throwing at him was so obviously intentional it was painful. She did know that Riku had been trying _not_ to fling himself at Sora's house all morning, right? And now, what, she was sending him there? _What the heck?_

"Listen here, Riku. If you don't take this plate of food like I have so kindly asked you, I will not only put you on garage duty, but I will _also_ forbid any piano playing for a week," his mum stated, spread of a sly smile across her face. "Is that understood?"

Oh, she wouldn't dare. "But mum –"

"Don't you 'but mum' me, mister. I don't see how hard it is to walk next door and hand Ms Knight a little welcoming gift."

"It's not that it's hard or anything –"

"Then why won't you?"

"I - I just don't _want_ to, mu –"

"You might even get to see that lovely Sora boy."

"But that's my _point_ –" Riku realized his mistake immediately and backpedaled. "I-I mean –"

"Riku," his mum said, motherly tone comforting. "Maybe you should stop avoiding it and go."

Riku stumbled over his words, mouth agape but it was doing nothing to help him. What exactly did she mean when she told him to 'stop avoiding it'? Did she know what she was talking about? Did she know what _he_ was talking about (and god did he wish she didn't know)? There was a stretch of silence, extended between them and growing, bigger and bigger, and Riku decided that he'd just go with what his mother was telling him to do and hope with all hope that she didn't know exactly what he was thinking.

"Fine, I'll go."

"That's more like it!" She exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Now be careful when you're carrying this; it's heavy," she warned, picking up a large ceramic plate that was ridiculously overflowing with food and handed it to him. The smell emanating from it was mouthwatering.

She was practically pushing Riku out the door, then, calling out "Remember your manners!" and promptly shutting the door behind him.

"Well, that was nice of her," Riku muttered, slipping on a pair of worn out joggers and walking over to the Knight's place, wondering if they even liked coconut cake and barbequed sausages and whether Sora would be the one to open the door.


	3. Trusting and NearTouches

A/N: And here's chapter three! I think i might possibly like this chapter, overall. I dunno. You be the judge XP

* * *

**Chapter 3: Trusting and Near-Touches**

Riku was so nervous his fingers wouldn't stop drumming on the brim of the plate, creating a little sing-song beat that matched the unruly rhythm of his heart. Crickets hopped wildly in his stomach without any mercy to his internal organs and wrecking havoc in his guts (he wondered whether he'd ever be able to eat again), his heart sunk and rose with his breathing because it was dangerously stuck in the back of his throat and Riku had no clue why it was there in the first place, and then there was the fact that he kept forgetting why he was standing at the door of the house he was _avoiding_.

A slight shake of the head proved to be no help, either. Riku could practically hear his brain slush around in the hollow of his head; shake shake, _splash splash_. It was comical.

Riku heard footsteps against hardwood flooring and then he jumped, nearly dropping the plate of food, because suddenly the lock on the door clicked and grinded, and then a tug at the white and gold wood revealed a smiling, slightly flustered face, and a little huff in Sora's mums breath that could have tickled, if Riku could feel it (and he wondered where the heck that thought came from).

Her smiling face promptly turned to surprise.

"Riku, what brings you here this morning?"

For one idiotic second Riku was about to say _Sora_, but then he realized that that particular answer wouldn't sit well with Sora's mum and he stopped himself before the idea made way to his mouth. He then became conscious of the fact that, thankfully, he was holding a big plate of food and that it would be the perfect excuse. Thank god. He wondered when he had forgotten it in the first place.

"Uh, well, this is for you," he said, holding out the plate at arms length like it was infested with ants. "It's a little welcoming gesture from my mum." A polite smile graced his face, flashing for only a second.

"Oh, she didn't have to do that," Sora's mum pealed. "I'm flattered that your family has taken such measures to welcome us. It really isn't necessary."

"Too late," Riku laughed, then, because it seemed appropriate. "We've taken it as necessary." And Sora's mum joined in the laughter, too, lighthearted chuckles that made Riku's heart feel warm, like he was making his own mother laugh. Riku could feel the tension literally drain out of the air, like pulling the plug in your bathtub. If, of course, you could pull a plug in the air. He could almost imagine the gurgling of the water rumbling around them.

Then a pause, a slight hesitation, and Sora's mum was opening the door wide, wider, to expose a hallway full of boxes and plastic and intricate little items sitting under hallway mirrors attached to pearly white walls.

Crap.

"Would you like to come in?" Sora's mum asked kindly, and she stepped aside so that if Riku wished, he could enter the messy corridor. "Sorry about the mess. We did just move in, so it's been a little disorganized, but it would be rude of me to just leave you at the door because of a couple of boxes, now wouldn't it?" A lighthearted chuckle echoed through the hall. Riku's heart skipped a beat. No, he didn't want to come in. His insanity depended on staying as far away from this house as possible.

Of course, he couldn't tell Sora's mum that.

"No, it's okay. I think mum's expecting me, anyway," Riku hurriedly lied. Then his heart thudded in his throat, tenfold. He felt as if he was choking but he ignored the feeling, knew it was ridiculous somewhere in the back of his head that was not yet affected by these horrifying nerves.

But the hallway was so inviting; it called to him, pulled him in and told him that Sora was just behind one of these corners, perhaps a little sleepy and perhaps a little unbalanced and perhaps he would accidentally trip over something and Riku would catch him, hold him in his arms and Sora would look up and blush.

If he were in there.

"I don't think your mum would mind you being away for a few minutes," Sora's mum smiled. "Please, I insist."

Why did she have to be so _nice_?

"It's okay. Really," he declined as politely as he could. "I'm a little busy anyway, so –"

And then someone stumbled from behind Sora's mum, clutching a large sketch pad in both hands and a pencil in his mouth and Riku had to swallow his words so that he didn't say something about how Sora's hair was slightly ruffled and how it looked absolutely gorgeous on him.

Sora was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a white flannel top with a skull printed on it, gazing up at him with one socket, loose over his shoulders and reaching to his thighs and Riku had to wonder how someone could make white t-shirts and khaki pants look so adorable. Then again, Sora could probably make anything look adorable, as long as he was wearing it.

The sight of Sora, the mere sight of him, made Riku's mind reel with images and half thoughts that he tried to push away but they were so nice, the little thoughts of how warm Sora would be and what sounds he would make if Riku did this or that to him – but no, that wouldn't have happened; it was impossible, because Sora just didn't swing that way. He was a normal teenage boy whose teenage hormones responded to other teenage (and not-so-teenage) girls. And that hurt, but Riku ignored the slight pain that throbbed in his chest because no, he couldn't change that. It was unavoidable. And he had to face the fact that no matter how much he wanted, he couldn't be with Sora. Not that way. And looking at Sora, mid skid, so astonished and full of light like that; it just hurt more.

Sora skidded in his tracks, then, eyebrows going up, and up, and up, and they disappeared behind spikes of brown hair that looked so soft, so delicate, and Riku wanted to touch them at least, quench that part of his desire, and he didn't even care that it would have been wrong because at that moment he just wanted it _so bad_. Sora was staring at him with a pleased confusion that looked wonderful on him. It wasn't helping.

And then Sora's jaw dropped, clatter of a pencil on the floor as it fell out of his mouth but Riku wasn't concentrating on that, and he gasped, Sora _gasped_, and Riku knew then that he wouldn't be able to leave until he had done something, anything, that involved being with Sora (and he really couldn't help thinking one or two things that would involve being with Sora in _that_ way).

It was a few seconds before something actually moved. Riku registered that it was Sora's mum, staring intently at Sora and tapping him on the shoulder, obviously a little hesitant and more than a little confused. She had picked up his pencil, apparently, and was handing it to him.

"Sora honey?"

Sora blinked, looked around a little, then settled is eyes on his mum, who had stopped tapping his shoulder and was now standing with her arms folded, something that looked like concern on her face, but Riku wasn't too sure because it was quickly smothered by a neutral mother look. She placed the pencil in Sora's free hand.

"Huh?" Sora asked, eyebrows furrowing as he curled his fingers around the pencil. Then his eyes spotted Riku and he jumped just a little, a blush rising to his cheeks that he tried to hide by facing the floor.

Fuck, he was adorable.

"Hey, Riku," he mumbled, shuffling his feet and tightening his grip on his sketch pad. Riku's heart faltered at the sound of his name. He was trying to keep it together, but something evil and insensitive (and probably karma) was preventing him the privilege of thinking straight.

"Hey," Riku replied. Yeah, because that was the most awe-inspiring thing he could have said.

Sora swallowed so loud Riku could hear it (and the not-so-sensible part of his brain registered that Sora could make that sound in a different situation, too, probably with less clothing and tangled limbs), and he cleared is throat a bit and looked up, hesitantly, eyes looking through fallen brown spikes.. His blush had calmed down somewhat.

"Were you, um, going to –"

"I think Riku was about to leave," Sora's mum cut his sentence before Riku could make sense of it. Sora visibly looked disappointed, smile faltering but staying on his face like a grimace or a shadow.

"That is, of course, if he hasn't changed his mind," Sora's mum suddenly added and smirked at Riku, _smirked_, waving Sora out of the way so that Riku couldn't see him and held out a hand that indicated – _hey, you can come in and talk to my son, but I know you like him so don't try anything funny or I'll use my super motherly powers to make you regret it for the rest of your teenage life, got it?_

He silently blessed Sora's mum.

Riku really wasn't sure if he wanted to go in, though, unable to trust himself, but then Sora's head popped out from behind his mum again (god he was adorable) and he beckoned for Riku to come in and follow him, wherever he was going. So with a great gulp of air Riku followed suit, footsteps echoing thought the hall, trying to look inconspicuous as he surveyed his surroundings with a tentative eye and concentrating on not staring at Sora's back the whole way. Sora's mother suddenly disappeared through a doorway, and he thought he could hear the distant sound of a chuckle.

The hallway was crowded; discarded boxes and plastic crunching under their feet, bubble wrap popping, and that reminded Riku of times where all he would do was pop bubble wrap between his fingers, and that sudden memory brought a smile to his face. There was a light that was flickering above him, obviously about to die out, and it casted sashaying shadows on the floor and across the walls. It would have looked eerie in the moonlight.

And just like that not-so-sensible thoughts popped into Riku's head; Sora splayed under him, moonlight streaked across his face and his wrists pinned in between Riku's hands, Sora's body warm and close and shivering, perhaps, his hands running up Riku's back, sending pleasant waves down his spine.

This fantasy Sora was kissing him, lips moving hungrily on his, a little hesitant and a little unsure but it was great; soft and warm and hot. Riku slipped his tongue into Sora's mouth because he needed to, now, couldn't help it and oh god, Sora's tongue danced with his and it sent electrifying jolts through his nerves and down; down his back, down lower. Mmn, that was nice.

Riku wanted to make Sora moan, so he did, grinding his hips against Sora's and his breath stuttered in Riku's ear and he grinded again and Sora _moaned_, grinding back and that was hot, hot, so hot, and Sora's breath was wet against his neck and Riku needed to grind again and feel that moan against him, hips pulling back and he was close, so close to making Sora succumb completely and arch into him when –

"Riku?" Sora asked, standing feet away from him and scratching his head. Riku hadn't realized that he had stopped in his tracks.

Fuck, Riku thought, fuck he knew this was going to happen. Riku clenched his hands into fists and willed the images away, filing them safely in the back of his head, because, really, that was not something he wanted to forget. He controlled himself and calmed his pulse (when had that increased?), tried to act like, _hey, I wasn't thinking about making out with you, 'cause, like, I'm not gay or anything. Psh_.

"Sorry," Riku smiled, white teeth flashing against pale lips; a little, apologetic crescent moon.

Sora grinned, light reflecting off his teeth and he looked stunning, like that, under flickering lights and with that smile that was better than real, with his innocent look and vibrant air and with his happiness; nearly surreal.

"Did you want something to drink?" Sora asked. "We have some cans of Coke, but they're warm 'cause we haven't put them in the fridge yet."

Riku did want something, but it had nothing to do with Coke. He refrained from actually admitting that.

"Yeah, sure," he said instead, because that way he could have something to occupy his hands with. And his mouth.

"Right," Sora smiled, dazzling, absently flicking the corner of his sketch book with his thumb. Riku caught glimpses of penciled drawings; unidentifiable.

Sora took a sharp left into what Riku was sure was the kitchen. Bright yellow walls surrounded them, embraced them in warmth, and a large wooden dinning table set with decorative china (they had decorative china?) stood proudly in the middle, appliances of white and silver to the right. This room was also home to many boxes, but most of them were full and closed and looked like they hadn't been touched.

Sora walked up to one of the boxes, kneeled down beside it and pulled at the tape until it gave way with a rip, tugging a little because it wouldn't snap at the end. Riku stood awkwardly in the doorway, hands in his pockets and looking only at Sora, a little because he couldn't think of anything else to do and a little because he couldn't resist. Sora's tongue darted out of his mouth, then, as he tugged at the tape until it finally gave way, and he opened the flaps with one last yank. Sora frowned.

"Wonder where we put the Coke." He mumbled.

"Maybe I can help look for it," Riku said, walking over and kneeling next to Sora, pulling at the tape of the next box. The faster they found the Coke, the faster they could start talking. Riku couldn't wait. The crickets in his stomach resumed hopping around in their merry, merciless way.

It was five long, grueling minutes of pulling and tugging and disappointed sighs before the cans of Coke were found. Of course, they were in the box near the fridge. Duh.

"I thought they were never going to turn up," Sora said, stretching his arms out in front of him. "You want ice with yours?"

"Yeah," Riku replied. He was beginning to realize that that word was becoming the only word in his vocabulary. Like, for some pessimistic reason, he had forgotten every word he had ever learnt in the entirety of his life.

If his mind wasn't occupied with other thoughts he would have thought that that was depressing.

Sora headed over to the counter, then, getting cups from a box they had opened sometime in their forage. As Sora poured the Coke into the cups, Riku sat himself at the table and tried not to make the chair screech against the hardwood flooring. He could smell the remnants of breakfast in the air; sausages, eggs, and maybe there was a hint of toast, somewhere, but he wasn't sure.

"Here," Sora said, handing Riku his cup. Riku gratefully held it in his hands and took one long, deep drink. The bubbles tickled his throat and made him want to gag, but he ignored that, concentrated on how the Coke was warm and quenching his thirst. The ice cubes clinked together as Riku finished his drink and set the cup down, relaxation slowly settling through the muscles in his body.

Sora was smiling at him.

"What?" Riku asked, a little embarrassed (and his heart was jumping in his chest as if it was dancing and his thoughts were going, _dude he's _smiling _at you._).

"Nothing," Sora said, shaking his head, a slight blush that wasn't too noticeable on his cheeks. Then Sora looked as if he were about to flick through the pages of his sketch book again, but just as he was about to he realized that he had left it on the floor.

"Oh. Oops," an awkward chuckle, slight screech of the chair as he sat up and walked across the room to where he had left his sketch book.

Riku wondered. Firstly, he wondered about what Sora was smiling at when he was looking at him. Probably the way he had chugged his drink. That sounded possible. Secondly, he wondered what was in Sora's sketchbook. It was a normal curiosity; expected. When someone drew something you wanted to see it, right? It was instinct.

So when Sora returned to the table, sketchbook in hand and happily flicking the corner of the pages so that partials of what Riku thought were Sora's private sketches flew by, he did the expected thing of leaning toward Sora and trying to get a better glimpse.

"So, you draw?" Riku asked, leaning in a little further because he couldn't help his curiosity. And he couldn't help being close to Sora, but that thought was pushed away.

"Not really," Sora mumbled, not meeting his gaze. "They're just doodles. And they're not even good."

"Has anyone seen them?" Riku asked, slightly teasing, but he tried to make that as unnoticeable as possible.

"Well, no."

"Then how do you know that they're bad?" A chuckle under his breath, huff of air between them.

Sora looked up and smiled, tentatively, shuffling in his chair. "I guess I don't."

"Then why don't you show them to me?" Riku suggested, leaning in closer, until he could feel Sora's breath on his face and he could smell toothpaste and cinnamon and gum in the air between them. He noted, with an inward smile, that Sora was staring into his eyes and blushing, which made his insides twist into knots and the crickets hop away on his intestines.

Right then, the moment froze. It was just Riku and Sora, close together, not really touching but Riku wondered what it would be like to touch Sora, just once. It was just them, and Riku knew that his heart was racing inside his chest, wondered whether Sora's was, too, then shook that thought out of his head without actually shaking, because that was never going to happen. His heart squeezed, and he felt that pain again, felt it in his chest and in his hands as they clenched together, for a second. He knew that Sora was never going to suddenly like him, not like that. It was unavoidable. Then the moment vanished, unfroze, and time resumed itself with heartless laughter.

Sora blinked, pulling himself out of whatever train of thought he was in, and his eyes widened slightly when he realized what he was doing and he looked down at the table sheepishly, running his fingers through his spiky hair; a habit, Riku noticed, that he had. He committed it to memory.

"I don't know," Sora said, unsure.

"Hey, you won't know just how good –" And when Sora raised an eyebrow at him, Riku amended, "or bad you're drawings are until someone sees them and tells you."

"Yeah, I guess," Sora frowned, staring intently at his sketchbook as if it were about to sprout a mouth and tell him what he should do.

"So is that a yes?" Riku encouraged.

Sora sighed, then, shifting in his chair and placing the sketchbook on the table, leaning forward in his chair so that their noses nearly touched, for a second (and Riku's heart jumped into his throat because Sora was just _so close_), his hands atop his sketchbook in a small attempt to hide it away. "Yeah," Sora sighed through his nose, sliding the sketchbook across the table to Riku, leaning back in his chair so that their nearly touching noses were no longer nearly touching and Riku couldn't smell the toothpaste and cinnamon and gum on Sora's breath anymore. "I guess that's a yes."

Victory for Riku.

But Riku was shocked. He never actually expected Sora to show him anything; he hadn't shown anyone else, right? So why would he show him? Riku was a stranger. They hadn't known each other for more than a day and already he was able to see something of Sora's private life, that secretive little part of himself that no one else was able to see. Did that make Riku special, in a way? Did it make him different to everyone else in Sora's life? Riku squashed the thought just as it developed, stamped his foot over it and stamped again, kept stamping, even, until he was satisfied that the thought would not come back and that he hurt like he had just trampled on his hope. He would have been worried if he had felt any other way.

Riku ignored the tight ache that once again made itself at home in his throat, swallowed, and then did the expected thing and opened Sora's sketchbook with hesitant fingers. The pages crackled, slightly, the black cover peeled off to reveal the title _'Sora's Sketchbook'_, written in fancy cursive lettering and surrounded by a border of thorns that twined around each letter, holding it in place, so lifelike that it looked as if Riku could touch them and prick his fingers on their thorns. He tried not to gasp.

Riku shot his gaze at Sora, who was looking at him with worried eyes that screamed his insecurity, his fingers tapping softly on the table in a rhythmic, fast beat, unable to sit still. He glanced at Riku with those eyes, then, and he stopped the tapping of his fingers and changed it to a slight tug at his shirt sleeve, studying Riku's reactions, his eyes, anything that could tell Sora what he was thinking. Riku smiled encouragingly and turned back to the sketchbook.

He tried not to smudge the thorns that Sora had obviously put a lot of dedication into as he turned the page, slowly, so he didn't accidently smudge anything, or worse, _rip the page_, because then Sora would probably do nothing less than kill him, and that wouldn't be good for their friendship (because Riku had decided that since he couldn't have Sora in _that _way, he might as well be friends with him).

Riku promptly gasped, then, forgetting to stop himself, because he was looking at a portrait of Sora's sister – Amanda, was it? – which stared up at him, so lifelike he thought he was looking at a photograph of her, a smile plastered onto her face and chocolate brown hair that reminded him of Sora's hair falling down her shoulders, off the page and into nothingness. It was beautiful, how her honey eyes shined, how she radiated energy even in a picture that had no right to radiate energy when it wasn't even _alive_, but this picture _was_ alive, all realness and liveliness in every single miniscule detail.

Riku didn't know what he was doing, then, because obviously he was more than a little gob-smacked and not in his right mind, so when he looked up at Sora and saw that he was looking back, worried and agitated and still fiddling with his the sleeve of his shirt, all he was capable of saying as consolation to the poor boy was, "Um, wow."

After he blinked, Sora broke into the biggest, most amazing smile Riku had ever seen.

Silently (not) hyperventilating, Riku looked back at the picture of Amanda and calmed his heart down, taking in full, much needed breaths while trying to look as subtle as gasping for breath let him. His heart was hammering in his ears and was now rising in his throat and he wondered, for a second, how he was even able to breathe in the first place. Riku considered glancing back at Sora from behind his bangs after he calmed himself down, did, and regretted it because that smile hadn't faded in the least; no falter or any strain; perfect. Wonderfully perfect.

Riku then busied himself with looking at Sora's other pictures, because practicality was a good thing. He restrained his 'ah's' and 'ooh's' as he flipped through the pictures, but sometimes his mind wandered and he forgot what he was doing and he'd 'ooh' and 'ah' and 'wow' particularly amazing drawings (not that they weren't all amazing) and somehow, from the corner of his peripheral vision he'd catch Sora's gleeful reactions to those moments. Riku noted palm trees, lots of palm trees; swaying palm trees, towering palm trees, and one particular palm tree caught his eye that was bent on an awkward angle and grew beautiful, star shaped fruit he had never seen before. He saw beaches, too, many of them sunny and happy and sometimes deserted, and then he saw a landscape of snow and ice that completely contradicted the beaches and made him wonder about Sora's train of thought. A turn of the page again and a night sky filled his vision, obviously drawn from a rooftop or something of similar bearings. It was peaceful, stars glittered slightly, the moon was a small crescent of silver against the backdrop of black velvet sky, which in itself glowed harmoniously with the stars; light and energy, and that reminded him of Sora.

He turned the page again after he murmured a slight (and completely involuntary) gasp at the night sky, when he was unexpectedly revealed to an unfinished drawing of a boy with long, long hair, staring intently up at him and a slight, teasing smirk that graced his face.

What the --?

Riku took a closer look at the sketch in front of him, noted the long hair, the smirk, the collar of a t-shirt he was wearing not too long ago.

Was that … him?

And just by looking at the picture (he didn't even have to see how Sora froze in his seat when Riku turned the page) he knew that yes, yes it _was_ him staring up with that smirk and the long, long hair, and it looked exactly like him even though it wasn't colored, and somewhere behind his frantic heartbeat and dead brain cells and the half thoughts of _dude this _must_ mean that Sora cares_, he had to congratulate Sora on drawing him so realistically when he had barely even seen his face. He had talent. And he thought about him. Sora _thought about him_, and that just made Riku glow.

"This is me," Riku murmured after a few dragged out seconds, and it wasn't a question.

He glanced up through long silver bangs to find that Sora was stiff; fists on the table tight and unmoving and his knuckles white, stretched skin taught, back rigid, jaw clenched, eyes locked on Riku with so much intensity that Sora could have burned a hole through his head.

"Yeah," Sora said through a tightened jaw.

Riku drowned himself in a moment of precious bliss before smiling.

"I like it."

Sora's jaw dropped, lips parting, and then his whole demeanor changed in the span of one short second. Riku could clearly see the tension in him _disappear_, his whole body completely relaxing into one small, grateful ball of Sora.

"Okay," Sora hummed after blinking a few too many times, and Riku could have sworn that he had heard Sora sigh. Mmm, Sora sighing in his ear, hair tickling his jaw line, ghost of lips on his neck – Riku stopped himself just as he realized what he was doing. He told himself to quit it, silently cursing his stupid teenage hormones.

He didn't stop smiling, but he did find himself glancing at the antique clock on the wall and nearly jumping in his seat. Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrap. Was that already the time? Mitch was going to kill him! They were supposed to be fixing Mitch's junk heap he called a motorbike _twenty minutes ago_.

Sora was staring at him with a look of slight confusion that was beginning to make Riku's heart jump in his throat.

"Sorry Sora, but I have to go," Riku rushed as he stood up with a start, his chair groaning against the hardwood flooring, and he regretted ever agreeing to help Mitch once he saw a flash of disappointment in Sora's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by understanding.

"Yeah, okay," Sora said, standing with a little more grace.

Riku hesitated, for a second, calculating what the consequences would be if he were to stay with Sora instead of helping Mitch out, pausing, and groaned because the outcome would have lead to something along the lines of Mitch chanting rhyming love songs outside Riku's bedroom door at five in the morning. He would never be able to sleep again.

"They're really good, by the way," Riku said, smiling a little and handing Sora his sketchbook back, and just as Sora grabbed it their hands brushed, slightly, sending a tingle of electricity through Riku's arm and he lingered there, noting how Sora's hand was warm and soft, so soft, how his fingers would brush against Riku's and it was a sin how that one touch made Riku crazy.

And then that contact was gone, and Riku looked up at Sora to see him blushing and looking away, tucking his sketchbook under his arm with a murmured, "Thanks." Riku had to remind himself that Sora was replying to him and not thanking him for that lingering touch he could still feel on his fingertips.

"I guess I'll see you later," Riku said, smiling, acting as if nothing happened as he hurried to the corridor, and he could just make out Sora's soft voice echoing against the walls.

"I hope so."

That made his heart jump again.

As Riku headed to the front door Amanda was there, surprisingly, a kind, knowing smile on her face.

"Hey," she said before opening the door, and Riku wondered if she was listening in on their conversation all along. That made him feel slightly uncomfortable, and he took a note that if he and Sora were to have a private conversation, Amanda and Sora's mum were probably gong to have to be far, far away. Of course, he stopped thinking any of that once he saw Mitch across the yard with a terrible grin on his face and hands covered in blackened grease.

"Hey there," he cooed, before grabbing Riku by the collar of his shirt and dragging him back to their house.

* * *

A/N: God, i hate that ending *shakes head* It's so ... rushed. Oh well. Next chapter, coming up!!


	4. I Don't

A/N: O_o

I am _so_ sorry this took so long. How long was it, exactly? Two and a bit months?? *grimace* Sorry. It's here, now, and you'll be pleased to know that it's kind of nearly double what i usually write =D That's why it took so long, see? This is my favorite chapter among them, so be kind with it. Enjoy :D

* * *

**Chapter 4: I Don't**

For something as deep as pain to be understood, one must be able to feel the pain, experience the ache, the loss, the searing fire of something mental and physical and emotional combined into one long, screeching nail against the chalkboard; the scar and the shiver and the shriek, the burst of freezing air against your skin, the chip in the chain of happiness, of security. If one doesn't do that, then one would not be able to feel the pain that they think, possibly, they could feel. It would be a lie; a little delusion cast because the truth was the _real _hurt, the one you didn't want to face.

Sometimes pain sounded like the patter of tears against a pillow. Hacking sobs –dry and cut and hushed –, the moaning of sorrows of someone in their bedroom, locked up and left alone so that no one else could hear them or see them or offer a consoling hand, because they didn't _want_ that, not then or later or ever. And afterwards, when the tears stopped and the someone of the rather fell asleep in that fitful manner one would be in if they fell asleep with a heavy heart, you would be able to hear the twist of the sheets and the muffled sound of the mattress, and even, possibly, if the pillow they cried on were to miraculously speak, you would listen to it tell you everything the tears said, everything the moans meant. It would soak up all the pain as if it were one depressing, ominous sponge, and it would whisper everything to you in its non-sound in the middle of the night.

And sometimes pain sounded like the groans and hisses of someone being hurt, the sound of boot hitting flesh, the breaking of a rib or a jaw or some bone of the like and the crack of it, groan and scream, the thud of someone falling. It would even sound like the recovery; hiss as plaster scrapes against raw skin, tears as a healing bone moves out of line, slight burn from the stretch of muscle, the knitting of it, invisible and conscious mending.

And sometimes pain sounded like something next door; scary and unknown and worrying and completely unexpected and ringing in your ears. Sora hesitated in his drawing, silver pencil hovering over the page and doing nothing constructive as he listened to something that sounded awfully like a muffled scream emanate from behind his white picket fence. It was promptly followed by the ring of metal hitting solid ground and another muffled grunt and – was that laughter? Sora grimaced, knowledge dawning on his conscience because that was _Riku_ he had heard, he was sure of it, and his suspicions were confirmed when he heard a strangled shout that sounded a lot like Riku's voice (though he had never heard Riku angry, so he couldn't be sure) forming words that sounded something like "Stupid piece of junk!" followed by a grunt and a strange ringing of metal and more merciless laughter.

Sora said a silent prayer for Riku (and didn't know why it was a stage prayer if no one could see him), hoping that he would be able to see him again soon, preferably not on his death bed or not while trying to wake him from a concussion, and definitely not while Mitch was still there, because that would be more than awkward and wasn't worth the effort (and Sora had to stop himself from shuddering from the mere thought), because Sora knew what Mitch was capable of, could hear it from a distance away and could imagine it (though he tried not to), and he was thankful that had had a younger sister like Amanda and that she wasn't like _that_.

When Sora returned his attention to his drawing, hand holding the pencil no longer hovering in the air but sitting on the page, waiting to be picked up and used, Riku's aquamarine eyes watched him intently with a non-glare that Sora thought suited him, white-silver hair half colored in so that one part of his face was framed by still strands of white-silver, half his bangs covering one eye, while the other half still consisted of light grey sketch marks that really didn't do anything or resemble anything but just sat there, representing. Sora smiled, then, hummed to himself because he was just that happy, and continued from where he had left off, white-silver hair around Riku's face slowly materializing into more than the something it had been left as. There was a sudden but welcomed rhythm of another metallic sound, a little like feet hitting metal but he wasn't sure, exactly, and Sora tapped his foot along to the sound and he couldn't help thinking the sound was foreign but known, on the tip of his tongue but Sora couldn't quite remember where he had heard the noise before.

The beat of possible feet hitting metal ceased, then, and Sora had to look up and wonder why that was so. He shifted his position, the too-wet-but-nice grass under him making his butt slightly damp, but that was okay, and his tree (he felt bad about not knowing what type of tree it exactly was) felt rough and solid against his back, bark scratching just a little through his t-shirt fabric.

Sora's eyes scanned the garden out of sheer instinct, not looking, just roaming, and just as he looked back to his drawing he had to double take the picket fence because, hey, _there was someone there_. And it was _Riku_.

Wait, _what_?

And before Sora could come to terms with what was unfolding in front of him Riku was _hopping off the fence_, and before Sora could react to even that he was walking towards him as if nothing had happened and, no, he did not just jump off a fence and into his neighbor's backyard and, no, he hadn't scared the crap out of Sora. And even though Sora was in a state of shock, he did note the faint bruising on Riku's cheek and the smudges of what he thought was oil on his hands, and he knew that if he wasn't so mind-bogglingly confused he would have felt bad for Riku.

"No hello?" Riku murmured, humor in his eyes but his face otherwise a mask of nonchalance.

Sora blinked, because it was necessary. And blinked again, for good measure.

By this time his mind hadn't fully grasped what was going on, but he _did_ realize that Riku was in his backyard, and that Riku was _talking _to him, so he was able to manage something of a reply.

"Uh, hello?" And care to tell me why you're in my backyard?

His reply wasn't very witty, but it was sufficient, and at the moment his relationship with Riku (and he wondered why he had called it _that_, exactly) could easily last on sufficient and nothing any more intimate or thought through, and that sudden realization gave Sora hope. Hope because, he had to face it, he didn't exactly have many social skills. And he kind of felt bad about that.

"So," Riku started, glancing for the first time away from Sora and to his white picket fence; nervous jerk of the head and scan of eyes. "I'm not here, okay?" And he was talking to Sora in profile, acknowledging but a little distant, and it kind of made Sora feel uncomfortable. He had no idea why.

"Why aren't you here?" Sora asked him, sly glint in his eyes and teasing but Riku never saw that, head still half-turned and facing neither Sora or the fence, more rather the space in between the two, like he was indecisive. Maybe he thought it was safer, that way, or maybe he just wanted to have a profile conversation. Sora didn't like this; these profile conversations. They made him feel distant and a little unwanted but he ignored the feelings, boxed them up in that familiar little part of his mind. Tried not to touch the other feelings there.

"Because if I _was_ here, we'd both be dead," Riku said with a frightening finality that hung in the air.

Sora was the kind of person who never said no. Or, more correctly, could not bring himself to deny what someone else wanted. Maybe it was the way he was raised or maybe it was a kind of retribution he thought up to get back at life for making his own life the anti-fairytale that people thought was a did-not-happen; the kind of thing that only happened in bad dramas, but _hey, look over here_, Sora would sometimes think, _I'm a does-not-happen! I'm living proof that life isn't always _perfect_! What do you think now, huh?_ In any matter, it was in Sora's nature to be the 'yes' and not the 'no', so when he detected the sentence Riku wasn't saying hidden behind the other words he _was_ saying, going something like _help me hide from my brother,_ Sora knew he was going to help him. Not that he didn't want to.

"Fine," Sora said, smiling when Riku (thankfully) turned his head back to Sora so that the profile conversation had ended and Sora could see his aquamarine eyes study him in that seeing-your-soul kind of way that made his heart jump into his throat, and he nearly couldn't keep talking, but he managed. "But if Mitch finds out, I had nothing to do with this." And as an afterthought he added, "That's your bother's name, right?" And he tried to ignore the tightening of his chest.

Riku paused, that studying non-glare still on his face, and, Sora noted with uncertainty, looked like it was _looking_ for something, like the detective who was trying to get the incriminating evidence out of the suspect sitting across the metal desk with his hands clenched in fists and sweat dripping down his neck because they both _knew_ something, but was it what they were looking for?

Sora let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when the non-glare in Riku's eyes disappeared.

"Yeah," Riku chuckled, shaking his head (and Sora noted distantly how Riku's hair caught the light), and that made his heart leap into his throat. "Yeah, that's his name. And you better hope that's the only thing you'll ever know about him."

Sora gave a sheepish smile and a slight shake of the head, too, like agreement and something else he didn't know how to interpret.

He was beginning to think that he had made the whole thing up; that Riku hadn't looked at him with that kind of scary non-glare and it was all in his imagination, or maybe he had tried to see his drawing in Riku's eyes. Or something. Just _not_ the something that was lingering in the air, the_ I want to know something _accusation that wasn't asked but was _felt_, sort of, like not seeing the wind but being able to feel it against your face. You know it's there but you can't see it; don't have that visible, solid proof, but you _know_.

With a start Sora realized that Riku was plopping himself next to him, leaning against his big tree with no name and sitting on his too-wet grass, huff of air through his nose when he made contact to the ground and he was close enough that Sora could feel his body heat. But he was _sitting next to Sora_, and Sora was drawing a freaking _portrait_ of him _right at that moment_ and god he didn't even think to hide it but it was too late now, because Riku's eyes were roaming and they were studying and they fell onto Sora's lap, where the sketchpad was sitting innocently in an idle sort of fake-calmness (and Sora really thought it was evil when he heard it laugh flippantly, not that it could), and he didn't even have time to flinch before Riku shuffled closer to him and asked –

"So is it nearly done, now?" And after a sincere pause, "Hey, I look pretty good."

Sora froze. He didn't move when he saw the slight hurt in Riku's eyes when he didn't reply, didn't _dare_ move, didn't want to take that risk because he was trying with all he had to not flee into the confines of his house. The déjà-vu was _tangible_; the feeling of stone, of being trapped in one position and not being able to even breathe, feelings like horror and uncertainty going through his body, freezing one part and then another in careful succession, and his heart (which had somehow ended up in his tightening throat) had befriended those stupid _freaking butterflies_ in his stomach and now they were playing hopscotch together.

And his head was full of thoughts he should have been acting on, but wasn't. _Oh shit Riku is_ sitting next to me_ and I have my sketchbook and I'm drawing a_ picture _of him! He shouldn't be seeing this, Sora you idiot idiotidiot IDIOT. What is he thinking I hope it's nothing bad he probably thinks I'm _sick_ dammit Sora DAMMIT. _He should have been doing something, but he wasn't, for the same reasons businesses had bosses and TV's had remotes; for _control_.

Could've, should've, would've. Why was it that Sora's life was filled with i-don't's? Oh, I _could've_ said hi back to that Kairi girl, but I didn't, because I was too afraid that when I had to leave again, I'd remember her, which I _did _anyway. I _should've_ told Amanda to run instead of stand behind me, but I didn't, because I thought she'd never make it. But she _could've_. I _would've_ made Him pay if I knew what he was going to do, but I didn't. I _didn't_. It was always _I didn't_. Sora never _did_ anything.

He never did.

Sora didn't reply to Riku, just like he didn't say hi to that Kairi girl or how he didn't tell Amanda to run or how he didn't make Him pay. He realized, after a moment that felt like a minute but might have been less, he wasn't sure (and in his defense he wasn't perceiving time very well), that he _couldn't_ reply to Riku. Or say anything, for that matter. But he didn't even have the strength to muster up trying.

And, to top off his misery (and profoundly growing anxiety), Riku didn't seem like he was going to say anything, either, and the silence that grew between them was screaming its awkwardness. Just. _Screaming_.

If Sora wasn't scared frozen to his bones, and if he wasn't realizing how much he just _didn't_ do, he would have tried to fill the silence with something quirky and random. Something _him_. And maybe something to do with Riku's portrait, if he could muster up the courage. But he wasn't feeling very Sora-like, so he didn't. It was like a different being was crawling into him and saying, _Man, you're life sucks, _while rummaging through his thoughts and throwing him the most terrible thoughts he had.

These pessimistic thoughts weren't _him_. They just _weren't_.

From his peripheral vision Sora could see Riku shuffle in his place and stare at the floor with what seemed like too much attention.

The pause in the air (that felt long, oh so much longer than a pause but Sora just wasn't sure anymore) was a lingering blanket; waiting, just _waiting_ to suffocate them both and laugh flippantly with Sora's sketchbook because they were both in this catastrophe together, working as a team to obliterate the only kind-of-friend Sora had had since … well, he didn't remember. And that was kind of discouraging. It didn't help that his sketchbook, his only solace (and, he supposed, his only friend, but he didn't want to admit that an inanimate object could replace his friends), was working against him instead of _with_ him, like it always did. Sora wondered idly when this change occurred. Maybe it was now, or maybe it was yesterday morning, when Riku first saw his portrait, or maybe it was years ago and Sora was only realizing it now.

Or maybe Sora was flipping from all the stress he was putting himself under.

_But that doesn't matter,_ Sora suddenly thought up in all the mess his head was in. _The past doesn't matter. It's the now._

And right now he was slowly breaking the only remnants of a relationship he had with Riku.

Shit.

"Uh," Sora started, and Riku jumped a little, and it was painfully obvious how he didn't expect there to be any more conversation after Sora had rudely just_ stopped talking to him_ and now he was studying Sora again, maybe a little confused but definitely, _definitely _angry. He blinked, and then there was his non-glare, flashing in his eyes and looking, searching, and shit no that wasn't supposed to happen and Sora could _feel_ it piercing through his flesh as he tried to remember what they were supposed to be talking about (because it seemed like the only plausible solution that he continue where they left off and make it seem like there was just a very long pause). When he did, unfortunately and fortunately remember, Sora took deep breath before – _fuck, oooh shiiitt … crap how the hell did I forget that Riku was_ looking at the portrait _and that we were_ talking about the portrait _and that he_ shouldn't be seeing the portrait _in the first place?_ There were only a small amount of times were Sora's complacent mind could _not_ comprehend how to save itself from a bad situation, and all of those times had something or everything to do with Him. So, Sora concluded to himself, he was in deep shit.

Still, he swallowed his fears and kind of laughed, but it was caught in his throat so it sounded like a cough. "Uh, um, yeah." Laugh-cough, stumble of his tongue and he had to wet his lips so that they'd keep moving. "Yeah, it's nearly done."

Oh, great save.

Maybe God had decided that Sora had had enough for the day, because Riku's non-glare seemed to dissolve as Sora spoke, like it was being sieved through his words and dispersed into a neutral expression that seemed to want to say something, to Sora's delight.

Yes, Sora. Whatever it is you're doing, _keep doing it._

Riku blinked, something like an abbreviation for a nod (Sora suspected), shuffled on the too-wet grass beneath them and smiled at Sora; small, a little sheepish but god did it give Sora's heart a jolt.

_You _better_ keep doing whatever you're doing_.

Riku ran pale fingers through white-silver hair, bangs flopping rather pointedly back into his eyes before he said, "Cool," not a whisper but it could have sounded like one if it were louder outside, if the dull ringing of metal was closer and the music Sora could hear from a static-filled radio (probably from where Mitch was working) was turned up, a little more.

There was silence. Sora wasn't quite sure whether it was a comfortable silence or if it was awkward, thought to himself that he didn't have enough experience with conversations to tell the difference between the two unless it were completely obvious, so he opted for it being something in between.

He was a little fidgety, a little on the edge and a little nervous and just not very Sora-like, but he surprised himself by picking up the (now fallen) silver pencil and continuing with the last of Riku's hair, grabbing other colors as well and finishing off the shading, the little flecks of blue-grey color in Riku's eyes and the curve of his bottom lip, darker skin color for emphasis, shadow from his bangs covering his forehead (glanced at Riku once and a while to make sure he was getting it right). And then the portrait was finished, and he was putting down everything and just staring, really, not sure what to do but (try to) feel proud for his work, another small accomplishment in his sketchbook, and ignore the flaws he kept spotting. And he realized that his sketchbook hadn't turned against him, after all.

Then he decided that he might as well stop feeling bad for himself right about now.

Riku had stopped watching him a while back, respecting his silence, leaning is head against the tree and watching the sky above them instead (not the clouds, because there wasn't enough of them to look at). There was a feeling much like relief bubbling in Sora's chest, and he thought maybe that was because Riku hadn't realized that Sora had finished his portrait. Though he didn't know why he'd feel like that.

"Hey," Sora said, breaking the silence.

Riku started, lolling his head to the side to properly look at Sora and his half-happy half-anxious face, raising his eyebrows and sitting himself properly on his butt, picking off a piece of bark that decided to make itself stuck in Riku's hair and laying his head back down with a slight _thump_.

"Mm?" Riku replied, flicking the bark away.

Instead of replying, exactly, Sora gripped his sketchbook in his hands and held up Riku's portrait in front of his face, blocking the view of Riku with plain paper and saying, "I finished it," and he couldn't help but sound proud of himself (because he was). He smiled behind the sketchbook and waited.

There was a pause before Riku cracked up laughing.

And it wasn't just laughing, either. It was uncontrollable, hysterical; he was rolling on the floor and gasping for breath and choking on his laughter. _Choking_.

Whatever pride Sora had in his portrait shattered, replaced by utter, undeniable _mortification_. His eyes widened and his heart sank into his gut and he felt like absolute shit, like an absolute _moron_, because his portrait was being laughed at by the only person with the opinion that mattered.

Pride and dignity hurt beyond anything Sora had felt for a while, he put his sketchbook down beside him and glared back at Riku, because it freaking _hurt_ to know that he thought his portrait was so bad that he would _laugh_ at it.

"What the heck's so funny?" Sora snapped, and his voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

Riku calmed down, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes and clutching his stomach and looked up in time to see the utter hurt in Sora's eyes before he could hide it away with a proper glare. Saw it, then with a startled widening of his eyes sat up abruptly and looked at Sora with as much seriousness as he could muster while trying not to laugh.

"Sora, I think my portrait is awesome, okay? _Remarkable_. You're just –" Riku stifled a laugh, "You're not getting the joke."

Confused, the glare in Sora's eyes was gone and replaced by the furrowing of his brow.

"Um, obviously."

Riku clutched at his stomach and suppressed more laughter, shaking his head from side to side much like a wet dog before spitting out, "You had my face!" And he exploded into another fit of laughter.

I … _what_?

For one short, distressing second, Sora thought that Riku was crazy. Really crazy, like locked up in an asylum crazy. Like _should_ be locked up in an asylum crazy, because how the heck was Sora supposed to have his _face_? Then with something that might have sounded like a click and might have looked like a light bulb above his head, he realized what Riku was talking about.

Oh. _Oh._

And just like that, any hurt that Sora had felt was washed away and replaced by the laughter bubbling in his chest.

"I – I had your _face_," Sora snorted, and burst out laughing.

They stayed like that; comfortably laughing in each other's presence as the sun decided to set and cast shadows across the too-wet grass like a looming presence of authority, vast and growing and creeping along their skin. There, dark and sashaying, telling Sora that it was time to go back inside. Without Riku.

Now.

He was ignoring it, though, chatting idly with Riku as they looked upon the orange-pink-blue sky. Riku sat right beside him (hadn't moved since he got there), pulling strands of grass and tearing them down the middle and piling them up just next to Sora's still hand. The grass tickled his fingers.

"You _can't_ go to the beach and not swim," Sora stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and Riku just _wasn't getting it_. "That's like … like –" and he paused for a second to think out a good comparison, "like not licking your spoon after eating ice-cream." He crossed his arms as if to strengthen his point.

One white-silver eyebrow rose to hide behind equally white-silver bangs. "Not licking your spoon after eating ice-cream?" Riku smirked.

"Exactly."

"You're one funny kid, Sora Knight."

Sora's heart decided to quite pointedly send too much blood to his face. Ignoring the increase of fluff balls in his stomach, Sora glared at Riku. "I really hope that that was a compliment." He hid his sincerity behind sarcasm.

Riku sat up and raised his hands in mock surrender, shaking his head with amused, wide eyes. "I never said it wasn't."

Sora lightly punched Riku in the shoulder, and Riku fake-winced and fake-rubbed his arm and they both laughed, Sora still not sure if he should be offended or not but he didn't care, anyway. Anything and everything that mattered was right and perfect and laughing with him under a now-dark sky and against his tree-with-no-name and on his too-wet grass, there with him, taking refuge in Sora's backyard and unwilling to go home, but it was more than that. Sora could tell, could feel it in the air and in his stomach and in his chest and could see it in Riku's eyes. It was something, _something _more, but he didn't know what. Didn't think it even mattered. It was just nice to know it as there.

Riku glanced at the sky, dark and navy blue and clouded, huffed in the nether space of the fence and the ground and brushed off his grass-covered hands onto his black denim jeans.

"I should probably go."

"Yeah," Sora agreed, looking from the dark sky to the glowing white of his fence to the not-glowing white of Riku's hair. _Not-glowing hair_. That was a strange way to put it. Hair didn't _glow_.

There was an absence of warmth as Riku shuffled and stood himself up, wiping off grass and dirt and whatever else was on the ground that had found itself stuck to the buttocks of his jeans. He stretched, reaching up to the navy blue sky and flexing his fingers, and then he looked down at the unmoving bundle of Sora who, in turn, looked at him. There was a pause, there, Riku tall and looming and Sora huddled and small and for a second Sora felt as if he were a mouse sitting right next to the most amazing, mouth-watering piece of cheese he had ever seen. Atop a very dangerous-looking mouse trap.

And even though that made it sound impossible to get close to Riku, the smartest mice always took the cheese without getting hurt. He was smart. Maybe he could find a way around the trap and to the cheese.

Riku dropped his arms to his sides and sighed, deep and long and with his eyes closed. Stayed like that for a second, then rubbed his neck and started walking away, slow but Sora thought the movement was too quick, too sudden and he surprisingly disliked it. But he said nothing.

Before he really had a chance to walk away, there was a slowing in Riku's movement and he turned around to Sora, hand up in a lazy wave and an equally lazy smile on his face.

"See you."

"Yeah, see you," Sora smiled.

"And thanks. For drawing the portrait, I mean."

Sora's face glowed, and that was all they needed to say.

(And as Riku climbed the fence down to the other side he realized that the sound of feet hitting metal was Riku on his ladder).

* * * * * * *

He'd been trying to avoid it, but his mother had other ideas. These ideas involved a larger-than-necessary shopping list, a long trip to a) the two dollar shop on the corner b) the grocery store and c) Office Works and other similar chain stores, and, to his utter dismay, a whole day lost to shopping.

Sora hated shopping for school nearly as much as he hated going there. It was pointless, and in the end they ended up using half the stuff they bought and had to leave behind what they hadn't used because they couldn't take it with them the next time they moved. It was a waste of money and resources and time. So, even as he walked down the street with his larger-than-necessary shopping list in his bulging back pocket, he was thankful that he was doing the shopping. This way he could cut down what was on the list and save them a bit of money, and even though his mother would be angry, in the end she'd see that he had done the right thing.

Hopefully.

First up; the two dollar shop. Sora didn't know exactly what they needed from there, but he went in anyway and searched the shelves for anything useful. It was less than empty, and the store clerk was talking on her mobile in what Sora guessed was Japanese. She didn't even notice that he had walked in. Not minding, Sora grabbed a red plastic basket from the pile next to him and started through a promising isle. He retrieved the shopping list from his back pocket and patted the money in his other (not-so-bulging, but comfortingly there) pocket and searched. It was repetitive; walk, pause, walk, grab, and repeat. He could put himself on auto-pilot and no one would notice. There was no one to notice.

It was repetitive, like a lot of his life. Run, move, pause, move, and repeat; a year summed up into a sentence and a lifetime summed up in something like three. Sora didn't realize how hopelessly dismal it was. How hopelessly dismal _he_ was.

But that was his normal. Anyone else's normal was something like schooling, being raised, getting a job, marriage, kids, and death. Peaceful, content, trustful and planned out in front of them. To them his normal was strange (dangerous), and to him their normal was all he ever wanted, the right to it robbed from his possession by Him, the man he wished, oh god he wished would just crawl up into a ball a die. Long, slow, and painfully, maybe behind bars and starved to death or tortured or – or just _die_. Because he was the reason Sora was not a part of "them". It was funny, how Sora could split himself from everyone else so that he became the "him" and they were the "them"; two different groups with too many similarities to be properly separated.

But the differences in the similarities couldn't be ignored, anyway. And he hated how that was apparent and not apparent at all. Hated that it defined who and what he was.

There was a packet of blue ballpoint pens to his left, and he checked the list to see how many they needed. _Blue pens X 15_, it said in his mothers rushed scrawl. He decided to get a packet of ten.

The rest of his trip went on in much the same way;

_Pencil case X 4._ He got two.

_Ruler X 2._ He still had his old ruler from Ohio, so he got one for Amanda.

_Sharpener X 3._ He got two.

_Rubber X 5._ Why did they need five rubbers? He got three.

_Stapler X 2._ He got one.

_Scissors X 2._ H got both (he lost his and Amanda's broke).

_Glue X 4._ He got two.

_Mech. pencil X 6_. He blinked when he read that, shook his head and grabbed a packet of four.

_Mech. pencil lead X 4_. He got one, because it had enough lead in it for two freaking years.

The store clerk (who had decided to finish her conversation), did, however, notice Sora as he walked up to her desk with items in basket and money in hand. There was no conversation, no smile, just a quick scan of items and a short "$28.75," and the rustling of plastic. No thank you, no wave, nothing. She must have had a bad day.

The grocery shopping was worse. It was as if Sora's mother wanted to feed both themselves and Riku's family _and_ an army. If there were any fridge that could hold all the meat she wanted, it would be a miracle (for his mother, and a disaster for him). He wasn't at the checkout soon enough.

The checkout was the most interesting experience of Sora's boring day. He was tired and grumpy and pissed off at the broken wheel of his shopping cart pulling him in the wrong direction. Some can from some soup shelf decided to fall onto his toe, so now he was limping (because it hurt like shit) and that was awkward enough without having to stop repeatedly to get out of the way of some other shopping trolley pulling some other person in the wrong direction. And to top it all off the cues were longer than the isles.

Long cues or no, Sora was having trouble not thinking. About Riku, mostly, about the walls around him and the difference between friends and boyfriend and about what was in the difference, what he liked and what he didn't know and what he thought was possible. And just _Riku_, just Riku and him and his tree-with-no-name and his sketchbook and the sky. And the fact that he shouldn't be thinking about this at all, and what made him think Riku was even gay?

There wasn't much that could interrupt his thoughts; not the shopping, not the can (well, it did, but only for a second), not the veering in the opposite direction or the shopping list or the cues. His head, however, popped up in alarm as he heard someone shouting over the intercom, because alarmingly enough the voice was pretty loud and held no tone of customer service whatsoever. And it _freaked him out_.

"Axel, if you fucking do that _one more time_ I swear to god your head will be the centerpiece on my dining table," the intercom bleared at him, static filled and buzzing but he could understand it well enough. So could everyone else, apparently, who all had decided to look pointedly at the cashier two counters to his right. The cashier with the blond hair and the deep blue eyes and the checkered wristband around the wrist that was connected to the hand, tanned and all, that was holding up the pencil-like microphone that bleared his voice to the entirety of the grocery store. Who was, in turn, glaring at another cashier one counter to Sora's left.

One counter to Sora's left came another voice, deeper and not so angry but equally static-filled.

"If you wanted to ask me to dinner, Roxas, you could have just asked," said a cashier with an amazing shock of long, red hair and spikes and unbelievably _green_ eyes and teasing smiles and triangular tattoos under his eyes. Axel, Sora was sure he had heard. Axel and Roxas.

"That is _it_, man," Roxas retaliated with a burning intensity that may or may not have been affected by the static. "You're _dead shit_."

"Uh-uh-uuh, Roxy baby. It's not nice to threaten your boyfriend."

"I'm not your _boyfriend_!" Everyone winced as the static screeched against his shout in its own attempt to overthrow Roxas. Sora did not ignore the coloring in Roxas' cheeks (that he could see). Roxas, he concluded, was a bad liar.

The boy named Axel winced. "Now, that's mean. I think I deserve –"

"What the _hell_ are you two doing?" Someone in the crowd shouted. Axel and Roxas both turned very equally silent. There was a parting in the crowd; quick, fluid, and in that small parting stood the man who owned the voice; a man with long blue-silver hair and an X shaped scar on his face. By the all-black three-pieced suit he was wearing, Sora could have safely guessed that a) it was Axel and Roxas' boss, and b) they were in deep shit. Oh, and c) Sora's questions were about to be answered, because he (as well as everyone else) also wanted to know what the heck they were up to (and whether or not they were gay or just teasing).

"Hey, Boss," Axel cough-laughed, raising his free (shaking) hand in a kind of half-surrender. Roxas looked like he wanted not to be there, simple and definite on his face. There was no surrender, but there was no fight, either. Something like firm acceptance.

"Turn off that goddamn microphone and get your asses over here," the Boss growled.

Axel dropped his microphone onto the plastic countertop, but he didn't move from his place. He was eyeing his Boss and the lines that characterized his frown and the fists at his sides and the way his lip curled over his teeth. There was no fear, in Axel's eyes, more like reluctance. And Sora might have possibly understood that reluctance as Axel flicked his gaze in Roxas' direction. Roxas had somewhat dropped his microphone, too (somewhat being that he still held onto the cord), but he was holding the countertop like a lifeguard and standing rigid, tensed and maybe that was how he showed that he was frightened, because the look on his face was not equal to Axel's at all and the determination in his eyes was clouded with worry (fear).

"I _said_," the Boss growled, and the people that stood near him all backed into Sora's direction, so he had to stand on his tiptoes to see over all their heads. "Get _your asses over here_."

Sora could see, with his newly acclaimed view, Axel linger his gaze in Roxas' direction again. Only this time Roxas saw him and nodded his head, just the tiniest bit, faint ghost of a smile on his lips. Axel turned his attention back to his Boss and Sora could see the smile replicated in his eyes.

"You can't tell us what to do, Xemnas," Axel said, loud enough so that he didn't need the microphone to carry his voice to Sora.

"The _hell_ I can't," Xemnas barked, stalking slowly forward and parting the crowd so that they stepped back in waves. Sora felt someone bump their elbow into his stomach and didn't care.

"Look," Axel started, voice loud and full of authority and teasing; laughing, dancing like fire and it was too easy to hear it above the rumbling of footsteps and voices of the people around and near. "We've put up with your bullshit for way too long, _Boss_," and the insult in the word was tangible. "So we –" and Axel punctuated the 'we' by glancing pointedly at Roxas, who smirked, "quit."

Sora felt like clapping was necessary right about here.

"What. Did. You. _Say_?" Xemnas trembled with anger, literally _trembled_, and he took a step with every word.

"We quit," was stated by both Axel and Roxas.

"You punk-assed kids can't just go around saying you _quit_!" Xemnas shouted, and nearly everyone in Sora's sight flinched. "Now get your goddamn butts up to my office so I can tell you that your pay has been docked to _zilch_."

It was then that Sora (and, it seemed, everyone else) noticed a whole lot of bulky men in black stalking through the crowd. Toward Axel and Roxas. _Fast_.

"So …" Axel stopped and scratched his head, nervous flick of eyes at Roxas who was edging his way to where the mall met the grocery store ever-so-slowly. "We're splitting now …" And just like that, the security guards pushing their way through the crowd were getting way too close and the crowd (bless them all) were trying to get in their way so that Axel and Roxas could just _bolt already_. Because, weirdly enough, everyone was on their side. Even though no one really knew who they were or what they were doing or what their definition of 'bullshit' was, they were on their side. That was … that was nice. It was nice to know that nice people could look after other nice people like that; that they could care. Sora liked to know that.

Sora was one of those people.

He was one of those people, and realized just in time that the person who elbowed his stomach was one of those men-in-black security guards and promptly stuck his foot out so that the stumbling guard fell flat on his face.

"Sorry!" Sora exclaimed with a smile, raising his hand in mock apology. "My bad." And he tried not to laugh when the guard grumbled and (failed to) get up.

Axel and Roxas didn't miss nor waste the crowd's efforts. Axel spun on his heel and ran for it, Roxas following up behind him in what Sora thought was slow-motion (or ought to be). Everything was in slow-motion. Roxas was just slower.

There he was, right in the distance, there; a security guard who was not part of the his companions in the struggling crowd but separated, hidden, coming at them from a staff door. Bulky but fast, ever so fast and with an advantage of age and longer limbs. Where Roxas did not have either of these advantages. And he was in slow-motion.

And this security guard was gaining speed, _fast_.

Sora could see it; it was a taser gun, black and bulky and close, so close to Roxas' back that it looked like it might be touching. If he wasn't so worried Sora would have wondered why the hell a grocery store guard would have a taser, but that was irrelevant in the situation. Spoken guard was gaining speed, almost-touching taser gun suddenly alight with blue and humming over the humming of the crowd. He was about to touch Roxas, Sora could see that, short limbs pushing against the speed of longer ones but it was futile, it was going to touch Roxas and the guard knew and Roxas knew and Sora knew –

But Axel was faster.

His hand gripped Roxas' wrist and _pulled_, pulled as if he were playing tug-of-war with only one end attached to a person. Pulled, and with that Roxas stumbled forward and, though he did not fall flat on his face like one stumbling security guard, rather tripped his feet together in the middle of flying and landed quite haphazardly onto the floor. There was a moment that could not really be counted as a moment, by how fast it was, where Roxas was still and swaying, but then the (still moving) Axel propelled him forward and he was moving and trying to get a rhythm into his feet.

They weren't out the entrance and into the congested crowdedness of the mall soon enough.

Sora's shopping was somewhere ten feet away from him, between a family and an elderly man and other people that really didn't have a classification. He didn't care. Nor did Xemnas, or the security guards (who tried and failed to follow Axel and Roxas), nor the crowd or the employees lined up on the side. That was okay.

"Those teenage bastards will get what's coming to them," Xemnas grumbled a little ways away from Sora.

Sora decided that he liked Axel and Roxas and did not like Xemnas. The good side was always the most fun, anyway (in his opinion).

* * * * * *

He had heard too many times before that people could die from staying in an underground car park. People with claustrophobia, or fears of cars, or fears of choking on fuel, or fears of dripping pipes. Panic attacks. Those were the cases he had heard of. They were sad, accidental and intentional, once, but did that really affect how abnormally _abnormal_ it was? To have a fear of dripping pipes or exhaust fuel? Though, he had to admit, there were weirder fears, like anatidaephobia – the fear that anywhere, at any time, a duck is watching you, or – which is, ironically, the fear of long words. There were weirder fears, he did admit, but they were people's fears. Fearing something shouldn't be classified as 'weird'. He understood that. He understood that fear was not weird. Ever.

Sora was very, very aware that he was in a car park, and he was very, very glad that he did not have any of those fears. Because his mum was taking much to long to pick him up. He was left with these thoughts and with his shopping to stand awkwardly at the only free parking space close to the entrance and ward off those who wanted to park there.

He may not have had claustrophobia or a fear of choking on exhaust fuel, but he was scared of getting hit by a car (parking or not).

There were fifteen grueling minutes between Sora's standing there and his decision to move. In those fifteen minutes eight cars wanted to park in 'his' space, and those same eight cars with the very same pissed-off drivers went around his space at least twice, telling Sora varied ways to piss off (some had the decency to be civilly annoyed). After Sora saw the eighth car pass him again, the driver glaring at him through her tinted window, he had enough. His life _was_ _not worth_ a parking space. So with his trolley pulling him in the wrong direction, he stumbled onto the little should-be sidewalk along the wall and followed it along to the back. Thought he might as well walk around and look like he was doing something useful while he waited.

The car park was bigger than he had thought. That was okay, as long as he didn't get lost (or run over, or die of a panic attack). At least, if anything, he had room to move around. Explore the hidden depths of long-forgotten corners of long-forgotten areas of the fuel-infested, concrete-stained underground cavity.

He got up to nearly no exploring whatsoever (just turned a few tight corners and stumbled around another and trudged along a few paths) when he heard laughter. Hushed laughter, strained laughter, like whoever was laughing was having a hard time breathing.

No, it was _two_ people. Two different laughs echoing off unfamiliar walls to Sora's right.

There was another corner, and Sora turned it, left the trolley behind because it made too much noise. This was a time for sneaking. The corner ended and another appeared, at a sharper curve that Sora kept himself to, stood stock still and peered around, out to the cavity of space where he assumed used trolleys were to be left. This cavity was void of trolleys, though; none of the metallic and/or plastic, unreliable pieces of junk met his eye, not from the round of the corner from where he stood, at least. He didn't care. Because this cavity may not have been filled with trolleys, but it was most definitely occupied.

By two distinctly familiar boys, laughing.

It was Axel that caught Sora's attention first. He was bent at an awkward angle, like he was kneeling but his head and part of his torso had ended up on his side, shaking and heaving. His red hair fell about his face and covered it, hid the gasping smile and the squeezed eyes but Sora didn't need to see either of those things to know how much he was laughing. Roxas was lying on his back just beside him, feet hidden behind Axel and he was clutching at his stomach, side of his face pressed uncomfortably into the grimy ground and facing where Axel's face probably should have been. Tears were streaming down his reddening face and his laughs had started to turn into harsh, humorous sobs.

Apparently, they had made it out of the (utterly ridiculous) infestation of guards alive. Sora was glad, if not surprised.

"Hey," was Sora's only warning that Axel was indeed calming down and starting to flick his hair back so he could look at Roxas. He tried to melt into the wall as much as possible. "Hey, shut up," Axel stifled a laugh and sat himself upright. Roxas had apparently not heard him and was continuing his uncontrollable sobbing against the grimy floor.

Axel had since calmed down to the extent that he could look at Roxas. "Roxas," he murmured, tapping the knee closest to him as if he were patting down his pillow. There was no reaction from Roxas or his sobbing. Axel paused. There was a humming in Axel's throat, and then a shuffling on his knees, and then he was leaning over; on top of Roxas, looming and close and his hair nearly reached Roxas' cheek.

Sora could hear his voice, though it was little more than a whisper in Roxas' ear. Could hear it, and regretted it, because it wasn't the teasing over the microphone, no, it was … real. With depth, with finality and definition and – and no, it was not a public thing. It was two private words whispered in Roxas' ear and meant only for them.

It was a purr, a closing of his eyes and a half-touch of cheek-to-cheek, it was a breath of air that might have tickled Roxas' cheek.

"Roxas, baby."

There was definitely a reaction, this time. Roxas' face instantly calmed down, and his eyes opened and he was looking at Axel from the corner of his eye, quiet, now, the tears drying up in salty lines against his cheeks and against the grimy floor. Axel hadn't opened his eyes.

Roxas filled the space between them and kissed Axel's cheek. Axel didn't open his eyes. Roxas sat up, and pushed Axel backwards so that he did, too, and Axel didn't open his eyes.

Sora didn't stay to find out if he ever did.

* * *

A/N: *laughs* I finally put Axel and Roxas in here. Don't worry, you'll be seeing them a lot more later on. And maybe some actual, serious Sora/Riku. Guess you're just gonna have to wait and find out, hey? XP Urgh, i don't like any of the middle of this, though - It's kind of hitting a nerve. Like, i know _something_ has to be changed/fixed/removed, but i don't know what _it_ is. Maybe you guys do? I dunno, if you have any suggestions to what is the 'it' i'm fussing about, please tell me. Or just send a smiley-face review. _Anything_.

Got it? Yeah, i know you do.


	5. Titles Without A Reason

**A/N: **Hiii.

…

-shot-

Look, I know this took long, but my muse kind of decided to go fly out a window and then there was school and blah and I won't throw excuses at you, I swear. I'd just like you to know that I'm sorry, that my muse is crawling back to me and I can start to feel its presence again. And that I really hope no one's given up on this because it's been … what, five months nearly? Dx

Anyway, this chapter's okay, I guess. Ad to throw in some "past" stuff to make some other things a little clearer. xD

Enjoy!

**Warnings:** implied boyxboy love, a little blood and a little horror, nightmares, bedtime, and fences. Flames will be used to heat my bedroom because I don't have a heater.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters, but I assure you that I own A DOG AND TWO BIRDS.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Titles Without a Reason**

There was a time in his life that he had thought he felt like this; the equivalent of it's opposite. It was when the world was slowly draining itself into Apocalypse in the corner of his room where he sat, a bundle, sobbing. It was when what was 'normal' was an impossibility for the first time in his entirety, when the name he gave himself had shattered and mixed among the remnants of everything else that had broken. It was when, correspondingly, he cut himself across the sharp blades of what he was and what he lost and what was taken and the betrayal he felt and the pain he felt; cut himself and bled, over and over, never healing.

There were other times, too, that he thought would be yet other equivalents to what he thought he was feeling. He backtracked to two years ago, when he found out for the first time since the Apocalypse that he was able to find parts of himself among the shards and glue them together. When he found that women were no more than friends and men seemed to make his stomach curl with butterflies. There were names for people like that. He couldn't give himself a new name because there was already a title to go along with the shape the shards had formed. Some people called the shape 'fag', and others used 'gay', and they were all names he didn't like. Titles without a proper reasoning.

With that new shape, named not 'fag' or 'gay' but something else he would later define for himself, he thought about ending what the Apocalypse failed to end. Thought that he had glued the wrong pieces together, maybe someone else's or maybe two pieces that just weren't meant to stick. Thought that he would have been better off not trying to find what he was at all. Thought the names couldn't be changed because names could not be shattered. Amanda was the only one who could hold up the pieces, make him listen, grab him by the ear and while sobbing against the tiled bathroom floor and shaking at the blood on her dress and on his shirt and around them both shout at him, "They've _always_ _been_ like this! It's what they're meant to _be_!"

Did it count as a revelation when he only realized it after being told?

He liked to think so, because at least he was able to hold the shards up high and call them his own.

But there was other pain that reminded him of the pain he was feeling now. Other pain, like that of a constricted throbbing in his chest. Fast-forward to last year, March 4th, because that was when … when –

* * *

_It was sometime in the afternoon when the sun, bright just an hour ago, was sinking into the thickening clouds along a bank of grey mountains, like thick streams of discolored cotton across their peaks and building up until they became one looming presence that covered the sky. The weather was cold and shrill and biting; his nose was numb and he knew it was red, and so was Amanda's. The cold seemed to stretch the path in front of them longer and longer._

_They were nearly home. Or what their home was then, which Sora preferred to call one of the houses they had lived in or where they had stayed for the year, but not "home". It would never be home. Home was where they had left the first time, the island probably called Destiny and the cliché it had presented; "This Island will be the beginning of your destiny, your families destiny, the destiny of your childhood and your sisters childhood and the years beyond …" Sora hated destiny for that, but destiny and Destiny were not the same thing. He did not hate home._

_It had started to rain. A rapid pouring from the clouds gathered above them; colder than the cold and harsher than the wind. The little amount of people around them had dispersed into buildings. But he and Amanda still had a little way to go._

_In an attempt to get out of the rain, cold and harsh and thick enough now to blur their vision, they had hid under the shelter of a bus stop. The rain pounded the plastic above their heads, and the rivulets that ran down the sides were thicker than usual. It sounded like gun shots. Sora waited to see if they'd shoot through the plastic._

_It was a whole minute as they waited for the rain to lessen that Sora had realized there was a figure in the distance. He never would know exactly how He had found them, in such a secluded place. It was just such a – a logical_ impossibility,_ being found. Of course, Sora didn't know that it was Him in the distance, and he probably wouldn't have guessed if it weren't for Amanda being as observant as she was. Pausing only to calm herself down so that she didn't warn the "someone" that she knew they were there, she had turned to him and tugged at his sleeve and with a serious trembling that ran through her whole body and found itself combed into his spine had said, "It's_ Him, _and he has a_ gun_!" And she had jutted her jaw out in an attempt to still her trembling lip, and blinked her eyes to hide how wide they were; to blink away the sting._

_Sora was so angry and so _fucking scared, _he didn't realize the mistake of not running soon enough. The figure was too close and pointing at them something metallic and it glittered from the rain; shined, illuminated the hand that held it and illuminated the scar on the hand. The scar that Sora had inflicted, years and years and not-long-enough ago, sometime after a drunken lunge and a grab for a weapon upon the kitchen counter._

_His heart was somewhere in his stomach, and the only thoughts going through his head were _I'm going to die _and_ I can't let Amanda die like this _and _maybe mum will make it out okay.

_There was no reason to think that he would have survived._

"_Stay behind me," he had ordered Amanda, and she had never denied what he had told her to do before, so the thought never crossed his mind that she would then. Only needed to find comfort in the hand clutching his shoulder and the breath that ghosted along the back of his neck._

_There was a lapse in his memory, like he rain from that day had clouded his memories, too, because it wasn't satisfied with how much it had fucked with him already; he couldn't remember how exactly He had gotten so close to them, but he remembered what happened after that. Could feel the shivers that ran own his spine then run down it again. _

_He was just outside the bus stop, still in the rain but that had no effect. Sora could smell that undeniable scent of alcohol and smoke and burnt rubber and fuel, contrasting with the clean tang of the rain and setting the scene He had set hundreds of times before. He was licking his lips; jut of his tongue across his bottom lip, tightened his grip on the gun so that Sora could even hear the squeak of it and then –_

"_Hello there, sweetheart."_

_And then He went and said that_ goddamn word.

_Behind him, Amanda stopped. Just … stopped. Her shivering stilled, her breathing lessened so that Sora could barely feel it on his neck, and she just … stood there. The only thing that assured Sora that Amanda had not had a heart attack and died then, right then and there, standing, was the slow trickle of tears dripping down onto his shoulder. _

_That was her breaking point. She didn't have many. But being called sweetheart by this man was breaking point one and it served its purpose well. It broke. And she was broken again._

_He cocked his head to the side, amusement and glee a flash in his eyes and there was another lick of his lips, another adjustment of the grip of the gun in his hand and his other hand was buried deeply into his coat pocket. Probably holding yet another weapon, most probably a knife, but Sora couldn't be too sure and he had given up on predicting what He was thinking long ago._

"_Hm, you know, I've been imagining how this would pan out for a while now," He had murmured, flicking his gaze away from Amanda and to Sora. It stayed there. There was another lick of his lips, like a serpent. "I never expected it to be this … easy."_

"_You _bastard_," Sora had growled. The gun decided to sway pointedly in the direction of Sora's chest. His heart stuttered and he tried to hide the shiver in his bones. Sora heard the click of the gun. He closed his mouth._

"_On the count of three, one of you fucking brats is gonna hit the floor. I don't care who. Just don't go pushing your luck, boy." He spat in the direction of Sora, but it missed, becoming a slimy mess on the pavement. Amanda's grip tightened around him and the slow trickle of tears stopped, suddenly and abruptly. Sora's chest heaved when he realized she was getting braver. Preparing for the worst. _

_Sora felt like blowing His brains out onto the concrete with that precious gun of his and watching the gunk wash away in the rain and mix with his spit. It would have been a deserving end._

"_One …" He hummed, and Sora shook the thoughts of His possible death aside. Didn't rely on the fear eating at his insides. No, no he acted on sheer impulse and the adrenaline that tingled his nerves and that animal instinct, that knowing of where to go to survive, what move to make, what punch to throw –_

_But what was he supposed to_ do_?_

_It wasn't distinct, but it was audible. It was a rustling behind him, and he felt movements and jabbing against his back and heard jingling, felt Amanda's arm nudge his hip. Suddenly the smell of deodorant and perfume and makeup filled his nose, and that's when he remembered that Amanda had her hand bag with her. Sora paused, made sure that her face was definitely still resting on the side of his neck. He knew what she was planning. There was only one thing of real usefulness in Amanda's handbag. _

_And then he noticed the increase of her breath against his neck. A shiver ran down his spine, and he felt it reciprocated in Amanda's._

"_Two …"_

_There was no time to plan. It was just an idea in his head, cooperation between him and Amanda without the need of talking or justification. Sora loosened his grip on Amanda's waist behind him, tapped his thumb against her hip, something like a nod, a symbol of his understanding. She had tapped his shoulder, and then gently pushed his neck to one side. She wanted him to move that way. He tapped his thumb again. It was their own language. Bile filled his throat, and he gulped to keep it down._

"_Th –"_

_Sora ducked out of the way, heard plastic drop to the floor and smothered his nerves with the sound. Amanda jumped, holding the deodorant bottle in her hands and poised, ran the two safe steps between her and Him and just as his eyes widened in surprise, sprayed._

_He lurched backwards; hand in his pocket flailing out to shield his eyes. Knife thrown into the air but it landed much too far away for Sora to even attempt to grab it. Shit. He fell with a slightly comical wet thump into the puddle behind him, and He cradled his face, hissing and groaning and hunched. Amanda dropped the deodorant bottle._

_They ran. _

"_Don't look behind!" Sora shouted out to Amanda above the pounding in their ears. He had to shield his eyes from the rain._

_She had always listened to him when he told her to do something, so he never thought that she wouldn't. Not then, not ever. But they hadn't gotten far enough, and they were wet and cold and scared and Amanda probably wasn't in her right mind, then, probably didn't even realize the reflex action. And Sora couldn't look behind him to see what she was doing. But he could sense it._

_When she looked behind._

_She had let out a pained gasp, and there was a thump, and it was the only noise he could hear besides the pounding in his ears and the harsh heaving of his breath. And he had turned around, too. They had both looked back._

_He skidded to a stop, swiveled around and tried to turn back, but he slipped. Hit his chest against the concrete, heard the crack of it but didn't register the pain as he watched Amanda struggle off the floor with difficulty that could only have meant one thing, one thing that sent _NO_ as a vibration through his body and made him see the spread of red on the concrete underneath her. _

_The figure in the distance was not in the distance anymore. He was close enough so that Sora could see the gun glisten in the rain, illuminate the hand that held it and the scar on the hand. Amanda winced, and her shaking body defied her shaking hands, and she couldn't stand up._

_And Amanda had looked up at Sora, looked right into his eyes and they widened with comprehension when she saw his face._

NO! Not Amanda!

_And then He shot the gun._

* * *

After thinking about it, maybe the pain he had felt then was slightly more defined than this kind of pain. This pleasing kind of pain. But the pain he felt then and the pain he felt before were both equivalents of the pain he was feeling now, alright. Just … different.

He assumed that love felt something like this; like this pain. If he _was_, actually and irrevocably and impossibly, in love, then he assumed it would feel like this.

Love, when you know it's not reciprocated, is supposed to claw at your chest as if you have lost someone close to you in a horrific episode of trepidation, of disgust, like a pounding in your ears or the non-sound of gunshots above your head as you wait under a bus stop, isn't it? Like a knife slitting the flesh just above your ribcage, the blood a pearling, fluid substance and you can watch it cascade down and thicken and drip and turn everything into _PAIN_, isn't it? Like the tears that go unshed but instead claw at your head like that of a thousand ants waiting to feed off the rotting of your mind, your soul, your heart, isn't it? Like the way the very essence of innocence can somehow be turned impure just by a single twisted thought, isn't it? Like when you find out that the one person you trusted the most wanted to kill you so badly it made them insane, to feel that betrayal and hurt and degree of lusted loathing, isn't it?

… _Isn't it, Riku?_

Not that he was, like, in love or anything. Psh.

He couldn't let himself love, anyway.

* * *

Sora hadn't had a good night's sleep in God only knew how long. If he had to guess, he would presume that it was something like a year, but he couldn't be sure.

It ended up being for a lot of reasons, really. Sometimes it was because he had a nightmare, or sometimes it was Amanda having the nightmares, and sometimes there would be too much on his mind (thinking about Riku), or he'd hear the voices of his friends whisper in his ears and he'd be too afraid to go back to sleep. Sometimes, even, when these things did not happen, he spent the night waiting for them. It was like a timetable; it was all planned, it was all regular. He hadn't spent a night were all he did was sleep. That was crazy; he couldn't even think about it anymore. Couldn't wonder. Because it was like hoping, and one did not hope when there was no hope.

Tonight, Sora woke up to Amanda screaming. He jolted upright and held his head for a second, sudden movement made him dizzy and it seemed that her screams were echoing against his skull; a familiar and unwelcome throbbing. He stumbled out of bed, carried his head in his hands and hissed as his foot hit something sharp. The door was ajar but the light was not sufficient; it only acted as a poor indicator of where he had to go. If his door was closed, he probably wouldn't be able to hear Amanda's screams, anyway. But he had learnt long ago that it was better to keep it open.

As soon as he opened door, the light in the corridor blinded him. The switch was at the opposite end of the hall and he didn't want to stumble all that way, so he squeezed his eyes shut, listened to her familiar wail, and trailed his hand across the wall. When Amanda's screams were at their loudest, he felt the nook of her doorframe under his fingertips. It was only then that he could hear the distinct sound of sobbing; cut and hushed and sore, and the silence behind that, unperturbed, steady, filled to the brim of her room and seeping out into the hall. There was nothing else besides the non-sound of the light around him and his footsteps.

Sora's hand was shaking as he lifted it up to knock on the door. He knocked once, twice, three times in soft succession. He had also learnt, long ago, that it was better to knock before he entered Amanda's room. Blackened silhouettes entering through your bedroom door in the middle of the night, after you've dreamt about a time a year ago where the rain was too thick to see and all that was definite was a glistening gun in a blurry silhouettes hand - it wasn't something you wanted to see, big brother or someone else.

Her screams had stopped, but her sobbing hadn't. The door opened with a creak, surprisingly and naturally unable to disturb the omnipresent silence around them, only to swing and hit the wall with a bang and make Amanda scream. When Sora opened his eyes, they fell upon her shaking body, curled up on the floor and surrounded by the blankets she had pulled down and saturated with the light from the hall. She was the most vulnerable at night, after all, and even in the summer nights it was safer to be wrapped in one or two or three duvets, because knives stabbed through fabric couldn't reach you.

"Hey", he cooed, advancing to the tight bundle of her body with a lethargic pull to his stride. Amanda shook her head and wrapped her arms around her waist. With her arms drenched in the hallway light, it was reminiscent of a straightjacket; psychiatric patient, crazed, hallucinating, shivering and screaming at nothing besides the carpeting on the floor. It made her look like that. It made her look scary. Vulnerable.

Sora shushed Amanda, knelt down onto the roughness of the carpet and wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close and adjusted her head so that it rested in the nook of his shoulder. Her shivers ran through his body in thunderous, familiar waves, and her tears seeped through his shirt and onto his skin. His nightshirt never felt right if it wasn't soaked in her tears.

"It's okay," Sora whispered, rocking her back and forth and playing with her hair. "It's okay." And though he knew it wasn't, he was allowed to lie. It was routine to lie. These were justified lies.

Minutes passed into quarter-hours, and her sobbing had died down into choking hiccups just before Sora's legs fell numb. "You –" She started, and Sora rubbed her back in soothing circles, the way she liked it. "You'd think I'd get used to it by now."

Sora paused, hand still rubbing circles on her back and playing with her hair. He chewed on his words before resigning himself to saying, "You never get used to something like that." Hurtful truth, but maybe it could soothe her, now.

Amanda's body shook against his and her chokes grew into gasps. Sora continued to rub circles on her back and play with her hair, because in these instances the only thing to do was to wait, and he had known that waiting was the best option for a while, now, was used to sitting there and slowly watching Amanda arrange herself into a haphazard bundle and fall into another restless sleep. And as she began to do just that, his hand rubbing circles on her back and playing with her hair, just the way she liked it, the bump on her back just below her rib cage became prominent under his palm. Sora started, surprised and more than a little startled, paused, trailed his hand along it again, glaring at the netherspace above Amanda's shoulder so that he could aim his sudden flare of fury at something inanimate. Traced the shape so that it formed a corrugated circle in his mind. Amanda shivered, shifting under his embrace and he could feel her breath warm, steady against his neck, like she had fallen asleep. The scar was healing, at least, but Sora preferred that he sit there and glare at nothing and reminisce about why that scar was there than pretend that everything was okay. After all, lying to himself never worked.

There was silence, and then darkness, and then with an uncomfortable knot in his neck and a lightening of Amanda's bedroom curtains, it was morning.

* * *

Reliability is always a good thing, in Riku's opinion. Reliability meant that you could plan ahead and not worry about the uncertainties in between, because there was always that fall-back, the thing that caught you if you planned it wrong. Riku took advantage of this. He planned, and he made sure that he had something he could fall back onto, and he woke up early so that the contents of his breakfast would not be spilled onto the pavement or the grass or wherever he happened to be whilst outside and going ahead with certain plans that may or may not have involved a day spent with Sora.

His morning was slow and tedious. The alarm went off at seven in the morning and Riku seriously considered ripping it apart and going back to sleep, because no human teenage boy woke up at seven on a Saturday, especially not in the holidays and especially not because his brother would wake up in an hour to go to work. But, Riku guessed, today he was not a normal human teenage boy and rather a confused bundle of embarrassingly buoyant giddiness. His outside was his trusting neutral mask but his insides were in a tangle of _YOU ARE GOING TO DO THIS _and other half-thoughts that he had trouble smothering, or even identifying.

Ah, but of course, his mother and father were up before he was and eating their breakfast at the dining table without a second glance at their son or any empathy to the fact that they were _ruining his plan_.

"Hey, hon. You're up early," was chirped by his mother in a too-chip-for-seven-in-the-morning tone.

"Mm," was Riku's smart reply. It meant something like _I'm tired so don't try to talk to me_, but today could also be interpreted as _I'm tired and goddamn nervous and you're ruining my plan so don't try to talk to me._ His father, who interpreted human teenage boy talk considerably well, smiled at him.

"You mother and I will be going out to meet the council in five," he stated, and _that_ could have been interpreted as _don't worry, we're not going to ruin your plan, and would you start the washing machine before you do whatever you want to do? And make sure you're back by dinner time._

After a considerable amount of shock and a strong wave of gratitude Riku asked, "Why?"

His father cocked an eyebrow in a slightly surprised reaction while stuffing his cheeks with toast. "We're going to ask if we can chop the tree from the front yard down, remember?"

"Oh." Well, that made perfect sense. Kind of.

"Okay, I'm ready."

Sudden screeching filled his ears, and Riku flexed his muscles in an uncomfortable reflex action as his father got up from the table and walked over to the counter and his mother followed him with the plates. They grabbed papers and wallets and mobile phones (and purses, in his mothers case) from the counter and, as they walked past, Riku's father swiveled on his heel and said, "See you, kiddo," which obviously meant _remember the washing._

"Yeah, see you," Riku smiled, and his mother pecked him on the cheek while hopping on one foot to adjust the strap on her heel. _Leave, dad._

When they left the room, it became unnaturally quiet. Riku held his breath and didn't let it out until he heard the soft slam of the front door.

Now he had to figure out what to wear before Mitch woke up.

* * *

Mitch had left in a rather reasonable manner considering it was, well, Mitch. And that Riku was awake at this time at all, and that there was a very obvious reason for his being awake that Mitch was more than reluctant to pass up. Perhaps, Riku thought, if the day started out this … okay, maybe the rest of the day (with Sora) wouldn't be as bad as he was thinking.

He hoped to God it wouldn't be as bad as he was thinking.

But Mitch was gone now; a snide remark or two thrown at Riku before he rushed out the door, tugging on his Nikes and cussing obscenities at the time, and so Riku needn't worry about him anymore. He had other things that were worthy of his worry. For instance, it was a quarter past nine and Sora wouldn't be out in the backyard till ten, and Riku had nothing to do besides pace around the living room, glance at the clock every two seconds and entertain the less likeable thoughts in his head about what the day would be like (with Sora).

If he kept doing this, he'd drive himself rather unattractively insane.

And so Riku promptly fell onto the couch with a huff and entertained his less likeable thoughts there. For three and a half minutes, according to the clock. And precisely thirty seconds after those three and a half minutes he was biting his nails and tapping his heels in an unrecognizably frantic, ergo catchy, beat.

This was ridiculous.

So he went and started the washing early, because he could (and maybe so he'd be doing something besides biting his nails). Riku was sick of thinking the worst, sick literally to his stomach and he felt more than ready to puke the little breakfast he was able to eat onto the floor. So instead of half-thoughts about getting slapped and/or knocked out by a certain brown haired boy who may or may not have had a bad temper, he entertained the more perverted, likeable thoughts deep down inside that made his gut squirm with tingling sensations (that had nothing to do with throwing up) and made his throat go dry. And he decided that, though he may need another cold shower, he liked these thoughts better.

They seemed to progressively get more entertaining as Riku got more nervous, and in between the times of nine eighteen and nine fifty three the order of his thoughts went a little something like this –

They were in a park, not quite afternoon and not quite night, and Sora was on a swing. There was no definable reason for this, exactly, besides the fact that maybe the thrill of getting caught was exciting to some extent, but Riku really didn't know any other reason his subconscious chose a park as the setting of the scene. Did it matter? When his lips were brushing Sora's, he decided it didn't. (But it could have been due to the fact that he planned to take Sora there later that day, because parks were comfortable places where one could possibly feel comfortable enough to snuggle up to another just because they could, but he didn't really care. Really.)

It was a slow, lingering brush, but that was all. Barely a press of lips, hardly could be called a kiss but more like a tease, a taste but not the real thing. That was all, and at that point that was enough, totally enough when he opened his eyes to see Sora's lashes fluttering against his cheeks and to open to something like half-lidded and the curve of his lips to grow into a sheepish grin. It was more than enough, just to know that Sora wasn't going to throttle him and accuse him of being a rapist and a fag, but then, when Sora bit his lip and the look in his eyes asked..._ again?, _Riku wanted more. He wanted the real thing. (Or as real as a kiss could get in one's subconscious.)

At this sudden but delightful revelation, his mind supplied him with a wall. It wasn't a particularly interesting wall, just worn and grey and blotchy, but it was supplied nevertheless and he was grateful for it, because with this wall came the ability to press Sora flush against it. And he took this opportunity in full stride, without one single hesitation and in one instant he was grabbing Sora's wrist and in the next they were flush against the wall and Riku was pressing _everywhere_, hips and chests and tangled limbs and lips and when Riku kissed Sora and turned it into something hungry and he nibbled on Sora's bottom lip Sora _groaned_, rubbed his knee in between Riku's legs and _o-oh god_. Replicated the action for Sora and he moaned Riku's name and _god._ Hands under shirts and exploring heated skin and the half-thought of taking clothing off but never really getting to that point and Riku's lips tasting the skin behind Sora's ear and Sora's breathy _ah's_ into the crook of his neck and _god_.

And _god_, was it already nine fifty-three?

This delightful yet unrealistic thought process ended with an uncomfortable halt as Riku processed the time, the slight problem of something down south that wouldn't go away, and the fact that he had seven minutes to rid of this problem.

"_Fuck_."

Obvious swearing aside, no, he wasn't going to do that. He _wasn't_. Riku was going to think of something appropriate that would work in seven minutes and he was going to think of it fast (as to not bring up an uncomfortable situation or the possibility of being throttled and/or killed by Sora, if he didn't run away in disgust).

He _didn't want that_. He wanted Sora to be comfortable. That was the whole point of today. Sora being comfortable, comfortable enough to lean (snuggle) against Riku just because he could, comfortable enough so that when Riku probed into his life he wouldn't think a second thought about telling him every single detail and not notice how Riku would gobble it all up like it was all he could ever eat. Riku just had to … think of something that would put him off these delectable thoughts. Immensely.

He did not like where this thought was taking him.

Oh God.

Memories that he didn't want to remember bubbled at the surface, at the edges of his eyes but he wasn't able to see them, yet. He didn't know whether this was such a good idea or not. The memories first turned into sounds, muffled sounds that were muffled by the wall between his bedroom and his brother's, sounds such as bed sheets rustling and murmurs and moans and bed springs and then he was there, in bed, on a cold night half a year ago. Woken up by a particularly loud (and frightening) moan and he was trying not to listen to what was obviously happening between his brother and his girlfriend.

"M-Mitch –"

Oh _God._ Riku covered his ears with the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut tight, like maybe the sound was coming from the dark around him and if that dark was dismissed with his eyelids the sound would go away. But it didn't, it _didn't_ go away but it got _worse._ So much worse, and the bedsprings of Mitch's old bed came into the picture and the small huffs of breath that could once be distilled by the pillow were much louder and severe and he could hear more, like the wall wasn't actually there and _god_, couldn't Mitch go do these things in a hotel or something?

Riku cut his memory off there, before he scarred himself. Again.

He looked down. At least it had started working. Now he just had to continue not thinking about anything that would cause him any more trouble and he'd have two minutes to go check his reflection in the mirror and grab his wallet.

Two minutes later, it was ten o'clock according to both his mobile and his watch, even though the clock on the wall read an unreliable nine fifty-four. He would have to remember to change that.

He had brushed his hair through with his fingers, then given up on that and used a brush. Made a mental note to trim his hair. He had then stood in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection for a good thirty seconds before rubbing his temples, sighing, rolling his shoulders, and walking out into the backyard with the washing in hand. If he had to do it, he had to do it, and he was going to incorporate it into his plan and work around it because it was _not _disadvantaging him, dammit.

As it turned out, the moment he stepped out onto the grass was the moment Sora walked out his back door. Riku allowed himself a pat on the back for his absolutely great timing (and didn't push away the thought that hey, maybe this was fate) before getting back on track.

He put up the washing while listening to Sora whistle. It was nice. Just knowing that he was meters away from Sora was nice.

When the washing was done, and his flannel was splattered with water, he walked over to the fence. Sora was now so quiet that Riku didn't even know if he was there anymore, but he knelt down onto the yellowing grass and he looked through the hole in the wood. Sora was there, but he wasn't drawing like Riku had thought. He was just … gazing out into the distance, somewhere between the corner of the fence and where Riku knelt. Gazing and smiling like a complete and utter idiot.

Riku wondered what he was thinking about.

Throwing all tact aside, including the opening line he was _supposed_ to announce to Sora as he jumped over the fence via the ladder he was growing quiet fond of, Riku climbed the ladder, jumped off, watched the way Sora started and hit his head on the branch above him and landed with a graceful crunch of grass under his feet.

"Ouch. You okay?" Smirked because he couldn't help it.

"Guh," Sora mumbled, rubbing his head. Glared at the branch above him for a couple of seconds with a firm, annoyed pout that looked rather good on him, in Riku's opinion, before glancing towards Riku. Nervous flick of his eyes, a tanned hand running through his spiky hair.

"Um … exactly what are you doing in my backyard? Again?" And as an afterthought, "I don't, uh, mind or anything."

Ignoring the question, Riku walked his way over to Sora and squatted in front of him. Studied his face like he was never going to see it again. Loved the way Sora's expression turned from confused, to stubborn, and then to embarrassed, how he turned his face away and mumbled something incomprehensible to his shoulder.

"What was that?" Riku teased, leaning to the side to catch Sora's eyes with his own.

Riku was so close, could smell the shampoo in Sora's hair and the soap on his skin and the food he ate for breakfast (toast, definitely toast, probably burnt), could feel the heat from Sora's skin close and warm and so inviting, just cooing him to come closer, closer, closer …

Fantasy forming in his head, something like the park scene but it looked more like Sora's backyard had sprouted a swing set, wood chips and all, and some monkey bars along the fence. Riku was kneeling instead of squatting, because that was most obviously the more comfortable approach, kneeling in front of Sora and Sora had his eyes closed and his head tilted slightly. Moving closer, just a little, tickle of breath on Riku's lips. Tilted his own head to side and closed his own eyes and leaned forward a little closer and then –

And then he shook his head slightly like it would somehow shake the thoughts out of his mind. And Sora was looking at him. Staring, more like it. Sora was _staring at him_.

He needed to not make himself look like a complete douche, now.

"So. What were you thinking about?" Oh, brilliant move, Riku.

Pause, frown of consideration and then, "… Huh?"

"Before, you weren't drawing. You were staring at the fence. So it looked like you were thinking about something." Smile, shift on his feet and he tucked a strand of hair behind his ears. "What were you thinking about?"

It was funny how Sora's eyes widened. And widened … And widened. "Nothing!"

"Psh, I don't believe you."

"I swear!"

"I'll tickle you."

Sora froze. "You wouldn't _dare_."

"Try me."

"But I wasn't thinking about anything!"

Riku rolled his eyes and blew the hair that continuously fell in front of his eyes away.

"You're such a bad liar it isn't even funny." Did he really expect Riku to think that he wasn't thinking about anything after Riku saw that look in his eyes? While he stared at the _fence_?

Wait.

_Waaaaaaaaait._

Sora was looking in the direction of his house, wasn't he? And he was continuously denying thinking about anything, wasn't he? And he was blushing, wasn't he? And he was smiling before, wasn't he?

No. No, he was _NOT_ thinking about Riku. He _wasn't_. That's just … fuck, that's just unimaginable. Actually, no, it is imaginable, but it's not possible. Riku was just being full of himself. That was it. That was all.

But he asked anyway, because, you know, common curiosity and all.

"You were thinking about me, weren't you?"

Sora froze yet again, but this time he was staring at Riku, right into his eyes, and they told Riku quite plainly that yes, that was exactly what he was doing, and please don't hate me for it.

Riku could have sworn Sora's eyes were saying yes. He could. Have. Sworn.

* * *

**A/N:** Yes, I know. Not enough SoraxRiku. But it shall come. NEXT CHAPTER.

See you guys then xD


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